Van Langendonck stars again with best time on day 2 of FREC test

Photo: British F4

Dries Van Langendonck maintained his strong pace by setting the fastest time on the second day of the Formula Regional Europe post-season test at Hockenheim.

The MP Motorsport-run car had been sitting at the top of the times for most of the three-hour afternoon session before Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Ninovic appeared to have secured top spot in the final hour.

However, in the final 15 minutes, the McLaren junior set a time of 1m35.215s to pip Ninovic by just 0.001s.

The morning session began on a wet track but as a dry line emerged, times began to fall with R-ace GP’s Yuki Sano posting the fastest time of the session, albeit almost nine-tenths down on his best from the previous morning.

MP Motorsport’s rookie pairing were again right at the front, with Red Bull junior Rocco Coronel second and Van Langendonck third.

They were followed by two more F1 juniors, Williams’ Oleksandr Bondarev and Mercedes’ Kenzo Craigie, both in the colours of R-ace GP. F1 Academy driver Alisha Palmowski looked impressive once again, finishing just one-tenth down on her more experienced team-mate Ninovic.

The tricky conditions contributed to over an hour of running being lost to eight separate red flags in the three-hour morning session.

Conditions were much better in the afternoon, such that every driver set their best time of the day after the lunch break. Coronel was again consistently at the front, finishing just adrift of Ninovic, just 0.006s separating the first three.

After a troubled morning session, in which he only managed to do three laps, Ary Bansal took fourth for Trident, ahead of Bondarev and Sano, with Italian F4 driver Oscar Repetto splitting the R-ace trio by edging ahead of Craigie for seventh.

Wednesday’s two sessions saw some changes in the driver line-up at Prema and ART Grand Prix. Tomass Stolcermanis and Alp Aksoy were both out for the Italian team, which had run just two cars on Tuesday with Saqer Almaosherji handing over the third car.

Alexandre Munoz’s place at ART was taken by none other than Monza FIA F3 race winner, Taito Kato, possibly looking to get acquainted with the new Tatuus T-326 chassis ahead of Macau. Kato sat out most of the afternoon session before ending the day in ninth, just ahead of his team-mate Matteo Giaccardi in 10th.