Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Xcel Motorsport’s Patrick Heuzenroeder was fastest on the first day of the GB3 pre-season test at Donington Park.
Heuzenroeder was just 0.05 seconds quicker than Hillspeed’s Freddie Slater, with Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Ninovic a further 0.02s behind, while Hitech’s Deagen Fairclough was 0.186s shy of the pace in fourth.
Fairclough led for most of session one, but Ninovic edged him 0.057s with a 1m22.734s just before a red flag ended the session with 10 minutes remaining. Slater and Heuzenroeder ended the session within 0.4s of the pace in third and fourth respectively.
Hitech’s newly-announced Alpine Formula 1 junior Keanu Al Azhari caused another stoppage in session two, just after Fairclough had gone quickest with a new best of 1m22.650s. Following the resumption, Fairclough improved by a further 0.1s which was enough to top the session by 0.157s from Ninovic, with Slater third and Al Azhari fourth.
Session three ran would prove to be the quickest of the day. Slater lowered the pace to a 1m22.497s with 15 minutes remaining but, despite making a further slight improvement, was edged by Heuzenroeder. Ninovic was 0.1s behind in third and just ahead of his Rodin team-mate Gianmarco Pradel.
Heuzenroeder’s time was not challenged in session four, where two further red flags limited drivers to 30 of the allotted 45 minutes on track. Ninovic set a new personal best of 1m22.422s to top the session and finish third in the day’s classification.
Pradel’s session three time put him fifth overall ahead of Noah Lisle, who was again testing for JHR Developments but has yet to confirm his racing plans for the year ahead. Elite Motorsport’s Will Macintyre was seventh ahead of Al Azhari and Xcel’s Jack Sherwood. James Higgins and Stefan Bostanjiev both again tested for Fortec Motorsports and were 10th and 11th quickest.
Nikita Johnson was 12th on his first pre-season appearance for Hitech ahead of Rodin’s Abbi Pulling and Argenti by Prema’s Lucas Fluxa, who the final driver within 1s of the outright pace in 14th.
Testing results – day one
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Patrick Heuzenroeder | Xcel Motorsport | 1m22.352s | 83 | |
| 2 | Freddie Slater | Hillspeed | 1m22.402s | +0.050s | 74 |
| 3 | Alex Ninovic | Rodin Motorsport | 1m22.422s | +0.070s | 85 |
| 4 | Deagen Fairclough | Hitech GP | 1m22.538s | +0.186s | 69 |
| 5 | Gianmarco Pradel | Rodin Motorsport | 1m22.720s | +0.368s | 70 |
| 6 | Noah Lisle | JHR Developments | 1m22.755s | +0.403s | 81 |
| 7 | Will Macintyre | Elite Motorsport | 1m22.804s | +0.452s | 65 |
| 8 | Keanu Al Azhari | Hitech GP | 1m22.969s | +0.617s | 56 |
| 9 | Jack Sherwood | Xcel Motorsport | 1m23.045s | +0.693s | 47 |
| 10 | James Higgins | Fortec Motorsports | 1m23.071s | +0.719s | 71 |
| 11 | Stefan Bostandjiev | Fortec Motorsports | 1m23.208s | +0.856s | 81 |
| 12 | Nikita Johnson | Hitech GP | 1m23.209s | +0.857s | 66 |
| 13 | Abbi Pulling | Rodin Motorsport | 1m23.307s | +0.955s | 82 |
| 14 | Lucas Fluxa | Argenti with Prema | 1m23.351s | +0.999s | 69 |
| 15 | Kai Daryanani | JHR Developments | 1m23.459s | +1.107s | 90 |
| 16 | Flynn Jackes | Elite Motorsport | 1m23.669s | +1.317s | 73 |
| 17 | Rashid Al Dhaheri | Jack Sherwood | 1m23.724s | +1.372s | 90 |
| 18 | Mika Abrahams | Fortec Motorsports | 1m24.160s | +1.808s | 76 |
| 19 | Leandro Juncos | Chris Dittmann Racing | 1m24.979s | +2.627s | 66 |