Benavides lowers FIA F3 test pace in afternoon as Imola dries out

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

AIX Racing’s Brad Benavides lowered the pace on the first afternoon of FIA Formula 3’s post-season test at Imola, as the track dried out following morning rain.

It was still wet at the start, with most drivers who headed out early only doing sighting laps. Soon laptimes were coming in, at a similar pace to what had been achieved in the morning.

Pedro Clerot, Hiyu Yamakoshi, Theophile Nael, Noah Stromsted, Bruno del Pino, Kanato Le and Matteo De Palo all spent time in first place within the first 10 minutes, with 14 out of 30 drivers having lapped at pace.

Four minutes later Campos Racing’s Theophile Nael and Ugo Ugochukwu moved to the top, with the pair lowering the pace into the 1m44s.

Trident’s Stromsted moved ahead of them 25 minutes in, and del Pino went fastest again at the half-hour mark. Only four drivers were yet to attempt flying laps, and plans to change that were disrupted by red flags caused by ART Grand Prix’s Le stopping at turn four with a technical issue.

After the restart, Louis Sharp and Yevan David were first into the 1m43s, then Brando Badoer broke into the 1m42s. A minute later Badoer was down to third as James Wharton posted a 1m41.995s which Nael got within 0.142 seconds of.

The pace was lowered further by Ugochukwu, Wharton, Taito Kato, Christian Ho and Sharp in the first hour of three, with ART GP’s Kato setting the day’s first sub-1m40s lap.

Hour two featured either no drivers on track or one at a time, with runs starting again with 50 minutes to go. Drivers were making big pace gains, but losing laptimes to track limits violations

Hitech GP’s Jin Nakamura and Fionn McLaughlin went one-two, but Nakamura’s lap was deleted and their other team-mate Michael Shin was promoted to first having laid down a 1m36.974s.

McLaughlin and David set 1m35.9s with 43 minutes to go, before Tuukka Taponen lowered the pace to 1m35.251s.

Jesse Carrasquedo Jr swiftly beat that, then a 1m34.224s put Benavides comfortably ahead. Clerot edged ahead by 0.023s with 39 minutes remaining, but Taponen’s next lap — a 1m33.786s — returned him to the top.

Benavides responded, usurping Taponen by 0.233s, then improved again to an unbeatable 1m33.022s with 34 minutes to go.

A second split the top four entering the final half-hour, with Ugochukwu in third, and a few minutes later Wharton reduced Benavides’s advantage to 0.723s. Ho slashed it further to 0.636s, then Wharton set another personal best to cut it to 0.426s.

Alessandro Giusti was next to occupy second, getting within 0.36s of the pace, before Clerot came 0.088s shy of Benavides’s benchmark 21 minutes from the end.

Mattia Colnaghi took third place five minutes later, 0.018s behind Clerot, then red flags waved with 11 minutes to go as Sharp went off at turn four.

Action did resume, and Freddie Slater improved to fifth in the final minute before del Pino crashed at turn three and triggered more red flags.

Afternoon session results