Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Campos Racing duo Isack Hadjar and Pepe Marti were comfortably faster than the rest of the Formula 2 field in the penultimate pre-season test session at Bahrain.
They set their fastest laps on their first run in the first half-hour of the two-and-a-half hour session, with Hadjar setting a 1m45.331s to lead his team-mate Marti by 0.216 seconds.
At that point Trident’s Roman Stanek was third, and 1.438s off the pace, Rodin Motorsport’s Zane Maloney was fourth and Virtuosi Racing’s Gabriel Bortoleto was fifth.
The top 10 was covered by 3.874s, with Ritomo Miyata (Rodin), Enzo Fittipaldi (Van Amersfoort Racing), Kush Maini (Virtuosi), Victor Martins (ART Grand Prix) and Joshua Duerksen (PHM Racing) occupying sixth to 10th place.
MP Motorsport’s Dennis Hauger rose to fourth with two improvements, but after 34 minutes was knocked down to fifth by team-mate Franco Colapinto.
It was not until the second hour of the session that DAMS’ Juan Manuel Correa set his first flying lap, with team-mate Jak Crawford following a few minutes later. By that point Martins was in fifth place, ahead of Hauger and ART GP team-mate Zak O’Sullivan.
Crawford jumped up from 21st to eighth place with an hour to go, with Maloney improving to seventh a minute later. Another improvement moved Crawford up to eighth, then Maloney joined the top three in lapping sub-1m47s while team-mate Miyata climbed to seventh place.
The next change in the top 10 was with 35 minutes left on the clock, as Prema’s Andrea Kimi Antonelli went fourth fastest with a 1m46.733s.
18 minutes later there was another big riser, with Virtuosi’s Kush Maini going from 16th to third by setting a 1m46.310s and becoming the only driver within a second of Campos’s pace.
Fittipaldi wet seventh fastest with 10-and-a-half minutes to go, and that set the final order. While Campos’s gap at the top suggested the team had made a big pace improvement, Hadjar was actually 3.8s slower than the test’s fastest laptime.
Morning session results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gaps | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Isack Hadjar | Campos Racing | 1m45.331s | 39 | |
| 2 | Pepe Marti | Campos Racing | 1m45.347s | +0.216s | 41 |
| 3 | Kush Maini | Virtuosi Racing | 1m46.310s | +0.979s | 48 |
| 4 | Roman Stanek | Trident | 1m46.662s | +1.331s | 28 |
| 5 | Andrea Kimi Antonelli | Prema | 1m46.733s | +1.402s | 48 |
| 6 | Zane Maloney | Rodin Motorsport | 1m46.759s | +1.428s | 45 |
| 7 | Enzo Fittipaldi | Van Amersfoort Racing | 1m46.885s | +1.554s | 20 |
| 8 | Gabriel Bortoleto | Virtuosi Racing | 1m47.066s | +1.735s | 45 |
| 9 | Franco Colapinto | MP Motorsport | 1m47.081s | +1.750s | 42 |
| 10 | Dennis Hauger | MP Motorsport | 1m47.194s | +1.863s | 43 |
| 11 | Victor Martins | ART Grand Prix | 1m47.391s | +2.060s | 44 |
| 12 | Ritomo Miyata | Rodin Motorsport | 1m47.391s | +2.060s | 46 |
| 13 | Jak Crawford | DAMS | 1m47.432s | +2.101s | 33 |
| 14 | Richard Verschoor | Trident | 1m47.576s | +2.245s | 28 |
| 15 | Zak O’Sullivan | ART Grand Prix | 1m47.840s | +2.509s | 30 |
| 16 | Ollie Bearman | Prema | 1m48.005s | +2.674s | 48 |
| 17 | Amaury Cordeel | Hitech GP | 1m48.226s | +2.895s | 47 |
| 18 | Rafael Villagomez | Van Amersfoort Racing | 1m48.560s | +3.229s | 42 |
| 19 | Paul Aron | Hitech GP | 1m48.987s | +3.656s | 46 |
| 20 | Joshua Duerksen | PHM Racing | 1m49.205s | +3.874s | 51 |
| 21 | Taylor Barnard | PHM Racing | 1m50.082s | +4.751s | 24 |
| 22 | Juan Manuel Correa | DAMS | 1m50.639s | +5.307s | 11 |