Home Z - Archive seriesFormula Renault 2.0FR2.0 NEC Jake Hughes tops practice for Formula Renault 2.0 NEC finale

Jake Hughes tops practice for Formula Renault 2.0 NEC finale

by Peter Allen
Jake Hughes

Photo: Marko Unger

Jake Hughes set the pace in a 45-minute practice session ahead of the final round of the Formula Renault 2.0 NEC season at the Nurburgring.

The reigning BRDC F4 champion, in his second weekend driving with the ART Junior Team, set a time of 1m59.047 close to the end of the session.

He was a quarter of a second clear of the second best driver – his former team-mate at Mark Burdett Motorsport, Raoul Owens. Jules Gounon was third for AVF ahead of Formula BMW Talent Cup winner Robin Hansson.

The quickest of the drivers with a mathematical chance of the title was Ukyo Sasahara, who is sixth in the standings and was fifth fastest for Euronova. Championship leader Ben Barnicoat was sixth for Fortec ahead of AVF’s Roy Geerts, two-time winner Kevin Jorg and Seb Morris, who sits fourth in the standings, 39 points behind Barnicoat with a maximum of 30 points available in each of the weekend’s three races.

Steijn Schothorst, who is third in the points, 24 off the lead, completed the top ten times. Louis Deletraz, who is second to Barnicoat with a deficit of 12 points, was 16th fastest.

The first of the weekend’s three races takes place on Friday afternoon, and has been added to the timetable following the cancellation of the final race at Most due to heavy rain. The grid will be formed from reversing the top six from the first race in the Czech Republic, putting Andrea Pizzitola (13th in practice) on pole.

Practice results
Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Jake Hughes ART Junior Team 1:59.047 15
2 Raoul Owens Mark Burdett Motorsport 1:59.304 0.257 16
3 Jules Gounon AVF 1:59.479 0.432 17
4 Robin Hansson Fragus BR Motorsport 1:59.554 0.507 14
5 Ukyo Sasahara Euronova Racing 1:59.716 0.669 17
6 Ben Barnicoat Fortec Motorsports 1:59.798 0.751 19
7 Roy Geerts AVF 1:59.801 0.754 16
8 Kevin Jorg Josef Kaufmann Racing 1:59.955 0.908 17
9 Seb Morris Fortec Motorsports 1:59.988 0.941 16
10 Steijn Schothorst Manor MP Motorsport 2:00.398 1.351 17
11 Josef Zaruba AVF 2:00.447 1.400 17
12 Phillip Hamprecht Inter Europol 2:00.488 1.441 18
13 Andrea Pizzitola Manor MP Motorsport 2:00.496 1.449 16
14 Martin Kodric Fortec Motorsports 2:00.683 1.636 15
15 Stefan Riener Speedfish Racing 2:00.930 1.883 17
16 Louis Deletraz Josef Kaufmann Racing 2:01.326 2.279 15
17 Ivan Matveev Euronova Racing 2:02.024 2.977 18
18 Igor Bikuna AVF 2:04.119 5.072 17
19 Harri Salminen PositiOne 2:04.559 5.512 17
20 Julio Moreno Manor MP Motorsport 2:13.541 14.494 5
21 Robert Siska Inter Europol 2:17.833 18.786 17