Home News Lotus pair of Stockinger and Vaxiviere top opening session at Paul Ricard

Lotus pair of Stockinger and Vaxiviere top opening session at Paul Ricard

by Peter Allen
Marlon Stockinger and Matthieu Vaxiviere

Photo: Gregory Lenormand/DPPI

Marlon Stockinger and Matthieu Vaxiviere locked out the top two positions for the Lotus team in the opening Formula Renault 3.5 running at Paul Ricard on Friday morning.

Stockinger claimed P1 on his penultimate lap of the session and then found a two-tenths improvement on his final effort to become the first and only driver to dip into the 1m48s.

Vaxiviere ended up 0.327 seconds behind his team-mate in second place, having claimed first place on four occasions during the 50-minute session on the Frenchman’s home soil.

Oliver Rowland was third for Fortec, ahead of the trio of Tech 1’s Marco Sorensen and Arden pairing Will Buller and Pierre Gasly who were separated by 0.013 seconds.

Following closely were Hungaroring race two winner and local ace Norman Nato and his championship-leading DAMS team-mate Carlos Sainz, with Will Stevens ninth for Strakka and Fortec’s Sergey Sirotkin falling from first to tenth inside the final two minutes.

Roberto Merhi – who closed to within 16 points of Sainz last time out at the Hungaroring – set his best time on his last lap, but that was only good enough for 11th. The Spaniard is driving alone at Zeta Corse this weekend, with usual team-mate Roman Mavlanov focussing on his GT Open commitments and the Russian-owned outfit opting to not field a replacement.

Session results
Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Marlon Stockinger Lotus 1:48.905 17
2 Matthieu Vaxiviere Lotus 1:49.232 0.327 18
3 Oliver Rowland Fortec Motorsports 1:49.347 0.442 17
4 Marco Sorensen Tech 1 Racing 1:49.653 0.748 17
5 Will Buller Arden Motorsport 1:49.658 0.753 18
6 Pierre Gasly Arden Motorsport 1:49.666 0.761 18
7 Norman Nato DAMS 1:49.695 0.790 18
8 Carlos Sainz DAMS 1:49.738 0.833 19
9 Will Stevens Strakka Racing 1:49.752 0.847 19
10 Sergey Sirotkin Fortec Motorsports 1:49.790 0.885 16
11 Roberto Merhi Zeta Corse 1:49.886 0.981 19
12 Jazeman Jaafar ISR 1:49.937 1.032 17
13 Matias Laine Strakka Racing 1:49.980 1.075 19
14 Luca Ghiotto International Draco Racing 1:50.202 1.297 20
15 Meindert van Buuren Pons Racing 1:50.316 1.411 18
16 Esteban Ocon Comtec Racing 1:50.432 1.527 17
17 Pietro Fantin International Draco Racing 1:50.454 1.549 14
18 Nicholas Latifi Tech 1 Racing 1:50.869 1.964 19
19 Oscar Tunjo Pons Racing 1:50.917 2.012 15
20 Beitske Visser AVF 1:50.936 2.031 18
21 Zoel Amberg AVF 1:51.752 2.847 17
22 Cameron Twynham Comtec Racing 1:52.004 3.099 9