Kucharczyk quickest in GB3 testing at Spa-Francorchamps

Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography

Tymek Kucharczyk was fastest in pre-event testing for the third round of the GB3 season at Spa-Francorchamps.

Seven sessions were held across Thursday and Friday, and the Hitech GP driver set a new GB3 track record of 2m14.784s in the final session, the only one featuring dry running.

Kucharczyk was 0.2 seconds clear of Rodin Motorsport’s Ugo Ugochukwu in Thursday’s damp opening session, and hi 2m29.544s kept him at the top of the timesheet for the reminder of the day due to the following three sessions being held in much wetter conditions. Points leader Louis Sharp was one place and 0.6s behind team-mate Ugochukwu, with Elite Motorsport’s McKenzy Cresswell, Velocity Racing Development by Arden’s Nikita Johnson and Hitech’s Gerrard Xie the only other drivers within one second of the pace.

Ugochuwku set a 2m29.544s to top session two by 0.2s, with Sharp and Kucharczyk completing the top three. Jarrod Waberski was one of only four drivers to set a new personal best, going fourth fastest ahead of Elite Motorsport team-mate Hugo Schwarze and JHR Developments’ John Bennett. Sharp and Kucharczyk topped a session each in the afternoon, with no drivers able to improve their pace.

There was more rain for session five on Friday, and Kucharczyk again led the way with a late 2m31.901s to eclipse team-mate Will Macintyre by 0.009s. Sharp was third, and Xie was fourth. Ugochuckwu held first place for the second half of session six until Bennett set a 2m27.277s on taking the chequered flag to close to within just over 0.1s of Kucharczyk’s session one pace.

A dry line resulted in significantly quicker lap times in session seven, where all 22 drivers set personal bests. Fortec Motorsports’ Colin Queen lowered the pace to a 2m21.677s in the early stages before Cresswell went 2.5s faster. Sharp then set a 2m16.051s to lead Kucharcyzk by 0.9s, and the New Zealander then found a further 0.1s.

Cresswell responded to edge Sharp by 0.013s, and with 10 minutes remaining Kucharczyk moved to the top of the timesheet by 0.7s and improved by a further 0.4s to end as the fastest driver heading into qualifying. Bennett set a lap within 0.8s of the pace, with Macintyre reducing Kucharczyk’s advantage to 0.677s to take second. VRD’s Noah Ping made a late improvement to demote Cresswell and Sharp to fifth and sixth.

Waberski finished seventh ahead of Johnson, who is making his European racing bow this weekend. Kanato Le, who is cameoing with Chris Dittmann Racing, was 11th while karting and GB4 star Marcus Luzio was 22nd and ahead of his debut with Hillspeed.

Test results