Maini tops first morning of F2’s in-season Barcelona test

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Campos Racing’s Kush Maini topped the morning session of the first day of Formula 2’s in-season test at Barcelona as drivers got a first taste of the track’s new layout.

Barcelona has gone back to the original design of its third sector, with the final chicane now removed and replaced by a fast right-hander ahead of the last corner that leads to the main straight.

Such modification has allowed drivers to lap considerably faster than in the first in-season test session of 2022, with this morning’s benchmark being almost five seconds faster than the equivalent set in testing a year ago.

Prema and Campos were the only teams to run consecutive laps in the early stages of the session despite all of the cars had heading out for an installation lap as soon as the three-hour session began.

Jack Doohan went to the top of the charts with a 1m26.031s lap as the first hour of running was completed, bettering the previous fastest lap held by Campos’ Ralph Boschung to the tune of 0.246s.

Virtuosi Racing ace Doohan then improved then his laptime by another three tenths of a second to stay on top of the timesheet for the following hour-and-a-half. Fellow Alpine junior Victor Martins and his ART Grand Prix team-mate Theo Pourchaire placed themselves second and third in the order, within half a second of Doohan as more drivers headed out for mileage on the updated layout they will race on at the start of June.

Red flags were waved with just over 20 minutes remaining in the session as MP Motorsport’s Dennis Hauger found the gravel trap in the first sector, just when he had fitted a new set of supersoft tyres.

The track went green again with 15 minutes left on the clock. Hauger’s team-mate Daruvala set a new benchmark of 1m24.955s on the soft compound, followed by Boschung 0.093s behind on the same tyre.

Moments later, Maini went fastest, posting a 1m24.943s to squeak ahead by 0.012s.

Trident’s Roman Stanek and Clement Novalak were the drivers who completed the most laps, a total of 43 and 42 respectively, while Frederik Vesti and Ollie Bearman were among the very first to set laps but not at a representative pace and then never showed their true pace on the timesheet.

Morning session results