Marti denies Varrone in final session of Abu Dhabi F2 test

Photo: Red Bull

Red Bull junior Pepe Marti denied Formula 2 debutant Nico Varrone the honour of topping the final session of the Abu Dhabi post-season test.

The final three hours of running were quiet on the whole and it was 24 minutes before the first laptime was registered by Christian Mansell. Almost one hour and 10 minutes had elapsed before Richard Verschoor posted the first representative below 1m40s, a 1m37.956.

Half an hour later, Varrone went half a second quicker to claim top spot. The Argentine sportscar ace, who last raced a single-seater in GB3 in 2020, took over Joshua Duerksen’s car for the final day after the AIX Racing driver headed both sessions on day two.

It was only in the last half an hour that Varrone’s time was challenged by Marti, who initially got within 0.098s of the benchmark and then went 0.072s quicker with 18 minutes left on the clock.

The Campos Racing driver’s 1m37.351s was over a second-and-a-half slower than Victor Martins went on Friday morning, with Duerksen’s 1m35.583s from Thursday morning remaining the best time of the test.

Rodin Motorsport duo Alex Dunne and Christian Mansell claimed third and fourth places inside the final 10 minutes. McLaren junior Dunne completed his debut F2 test 0.129s off Marti’s time.

Verschoor’s earlier effort remained good enough for fifth and was the last driver within a second off the pace.

Martins claimed sixth near the end with a time 1.4s slower than Marti. Leonardo Fornaroli took eighth at the chequered flag, just behind Kush Maini and ahead of Gabriele Mini and Ritomo Miyata.

There was a single red flag interruption with one hour remaining for an incident involving Jak Crawford, which brought an early end to his test.

Afternoon session results