Bortoleto continues to set the Barcelona pace in F3 testing

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Trident’s Gabriel Bortoleto was fastest again in the second FIA Formula 3 test session at Barcelona.

The points leader was fastest in the morning session on Thursday, and repeated the feat in the afternoon. He was on top from the very start as the first driver in the session to set a laptime, a 1m43.776s, and improved multiple times to 1m31.690s after 14 minutes had passed.

At the quarter-hour mark a flurry of improvements came in, with Bortoleto being shuffled down to fifth place as Campos Racing’s Pepe Marti set a 1m29.992s, team-mate Hugh Barter went second fastest with a 1m30.785s and Christian Mansell made it a 1-2-3 for the team by lapping in 1m31.164s.

Only 17 of the driver 30 drivers had set laptimes at that point, and when the next group of cars took to track there was another change to the order. Prema’s Dino Beganovic lowered the pace to 1m29.573s after 23 minutes, with Marti improving in second place while Beganovic’s team-mates Paul Aron and Zak O’Sullivan slotted into third and fourth on the timesheet.

On a track that was warming up and heading towards a 40°C surface temperature, teams then made use of the time they had before it got even hotter.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Caio Collet became the first driver to lap in the 1m28s after half an hour had passed, and his team-mate Rafael Villagomez went second fastest before taking over at the top with a 1m28.814s lap.

That kept him on top long into the session’s second hour, with the increasing temperatures leading to many drivers staying in the pits, until Aron set a 1m28.602s. His team-mates improved too, making the most of clean air on the track.

Aron was still on top when PHM Racing by Charouz’s Roberto Faria hit trouble and caused the session to be stopped late in the second hour, with Hitech GP’s Sebastian Montoya denying Prema a 1-2-3 by setting a 1m28.407s lap to sit 0.157s behind Aron.

There was far less track action in the final hours, but drivers still improved their pace when they did head on track and ART Grand Prix’s Gregoire Saucy got within 0.058s of Aron prior to the final half-hour of action.

Bortoleto returned to the top not long after that, with a 1m28.000s that would stand as the benchmark to beat all the way to the chequered flag.

Saucy improved in second late on, 0.076s off Bortoleto, and MP Motorsport’s Franco Colapinto jumped up to third place.

Marti was the only driver to take the chequered flag, and did so as he improved his pace to go seventh fastest.

Afternoon session results