ART GP’s Mini fastest on day one of FREC test at Paul Ricard

Photo: FRECA

Gabriele Mini comfortably set the pace on day one of the post-season Formula Regional European Championship test at Paul Ricard.

The test, organised by the Winfield Racing School based at the circuit, was also open to other single-seaters and there were two GP3 cars in action, four Formula 4 cars and one of MP Motorsport’s old GP2 cars which was being driven by Clement Novalak ahead of his Formula 2 debut with the team next month.

Mini was fastest in all three of the FREC sessions, with the first period of on-track action on a cold and greasy track featuring laptimes that were seven seconds slower than the pace on show later in the day.

F4 graduate Victor Bernier was Mini’s closest rival in the morning for G4 Racing, going just 0.064 seconds slower than him, then through the afternoon it was MP’s Sami Meguetounif who was second-best.

In session two there a gap of almost a quarter of a second between the top two, then in the final session Mini improved by over half a second.

Second place to ninth place was covered by the same gap between Mini and Meguetounif, with Bernier eventually ending up in fifth place behind Christian Mansell (R-ace GP) and Tim Tramnitz (ART GP).

Lorenzo Fluxa missed a session but still went seventh fastest, between Arden duo Leonardo Fornaroli and Joshua Duerksen.

Aiden Neate was the fastest F4 runner, while Isack Hadjar had some of his laptimes recorded in one of the GP3 cars.

Test results