Bortoleto quickest but pace gets slower in fourth F2 test session

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

New McLaren junior Gabriel Bortoleto was fastest on the second afternoon of Formula 2 post-season testing at Yas Marina Circuit.

The pace was slower than in the morning, but drivers completed more laps and there were three drivers who clocked up more than 70 during the three-hour session.

Hitech GP’s Paul Aron was first on track, heading straight out. However he was not the first to set a representative laptime, with MP Motorsport’s Dennis Hauger setting a 1m41.818s seven minutes in then improving on each of his next two laps to lower the pace to 1m40.485s.

PHM Racing’ Joshua Duerksen was next to the top, setting a 1m40.445s 10 minutes in, then Rodin Carlin’s Zane Maloney went on a run of four successive improvements that bring the benchmark time down to 1m39.653s.

After a quarter of an hour only 10 drivers had set laps, although 19 had left the pits, and Maloney’s team-mate Ritomo Miyata soon made his way into second place with a 1m40.136s lap.

All but Juan Manuel Correa and Kush Maini had set laps going into the second half-hour, with Miyata having reduced Maloney’s advantage to 0.359 seconds. PHM Racing’s Josh Mason had jumped up to third, ahead of Bortoleto and MP’s Franco Colapinto.

ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins and Colapinto had joined Maloney in lapping sub-1m40s after 40 minutes, then the MP drivers made huge jumps into the 1m38s. Hauger set a 1m38.937s, Colapinto put in a 1m38.558s, then Hauger went even faster with a 2m38.280s.

Red flags waved shortly after after a car stopped at turn two, and action resumed after an eight-minute stoppage.

There was little that happened once the track did go green again, and just as the session went into its second half red flags waved again and this time because of someone stopping at turn seven.

Prior to that, Van Amersfoort Racing’s Enzo Fittipaldi had got himself into second place with a 1m38.397s lap, with Maini going third fastest with a 1m38.425s and DAMS’ Jak Crawford climbing to fifth with a 1m39.109s.

Miyata got a warning for speeding in the pitlane at the end of the second hour, and only with 50 minutes to go did the pace start to be lowered again.

Maini broke into the 1m37s, then Prema’s Andrea Kimi Antonelli spent two seconds in first place before Bortoleto set a 1m37.206s to go top by 0.746s. He improved twice more in his next four laps to then get into the 1m36s, and he was on top until Antonelli set a 1m36.923s with nine-and-a-half minutes to go.

It was short-lived spell in first again, as 11 seconds later team-mate Ollie Bearman outpaced him by 0.032s.

Bortoleto responded in the final minutes with two more improvements, ending the session with a 1m36.381s to be half a second clear of Bearman but 0.598s off the morning pace.

Afternoon session results