Home News Kanamaru leads Aitken in opening F3.5V8 test session at Jerez

Kanamaru leads Aitken in opening F3.5V8 test session at Jerez

by Formula Scout
Yu Kanamaru

Photo: Jean Michel Le Meur / DPPI

Yu Kanamaru followed up his encouraging run of races at the end of the season by topping the first test session for the renamed Formula 3.5 V8 series at Jerez.

The Japanese driver stepped up from Euroformula Open to contest the final three rounds of the 2015 campaign for Pons and showed well, taking a best finish of sixth at Le Mans.

Remaining with Pons for the test, he claimed top spot at the end of the morning session with a lap of 1m28.067s.

He beat newly-crowned Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 champion Jack Aitken to the quickest time by over half a second.

Aitken, who previously tested the 3.5 car two years ago, is driving for champions Fortec Motorsports.

2015 runner-up Matthieu Vaxiviere ended up third quickest, testing a single car fielded by the new Spirit of Race squad which has taken over the old Draco entry.

Aitken’s FR2.0 team-mate Jake Hughes was fourth for Strakka Racing, edging out the team’s regular driver Gustav Malja by 0.046s.

Two more FR2.0 aces were next up, with Louis Deletraz sixth in the #4 Fortec entry of 2015 champion Oliver Rowland and just in front of Matevos Isaakyan, who had led the way in the other Pons car with half an hour to go.

Behind eighth-placed Alfonso Celis (AVF) were two of Isaakyan’s SMP Racing colleagues – Nikita Zlobin ninth for Carlin and two-time race-winner Egor Orudzhev 10th for Arden.

There were three red-flag interruptions: the first when Hughes stopped early on and the other two when Marvin Kirchhofer (AVF) and Jehan Daruvala (Comtec) spun.

Morning session results
Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Yu Kanamaru Pons Racing 1:28.067 29
2 Jack Aitken Fortec Motorsports 1:28.588 0.521 41
3 Matthieu Vaxiviere Spirit of Race 1:28.791 0.724 37
4 Jake Hughes Strakka Racing 1:28.909 0.842 39
5 Gustav Malja Strakka Racing 1:28.955 0.888 26
6 Louis Deletraz Fortec Motorsports 1:29.092 1.025 39
7 Matevos Isaakyan Pons Racing 1:29.194 1.127 33
8 Alfonso Celis AVF 1:29.419 1.352 27
9 Nikita Zlobin Carlin 1:29.740 1.673 37
10 Egor Orudzhev Arden Motorsport 1:29.817 1.750 19
11 Aurelien Panis Tech 1 Racing 1:30.062 1.995 28
12 George Russell Tech 1 Racing 1:30.252 2.185 45
13 Marvin Kirchhofer AVF 1:30.314 2.247 42
14 Richard Gonda Lotus 1:30.684 2.617 35
15 Jehan Daruvala Comtec Racing 1:30.784 2.717 34
16 Kevin Jorg Arden Motorsport 1:31.159 3.092 40
17 Vladimir Atoev Carlin 1:31.792 3.725 41
18 Mahaveer Raghunathan Comtec Racing 1:35.191 7.124 44