Marti lowers the pace on second morning of F2 testing

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Pepe Marti lowered the pace on the second morning of Formula 2’s in-season test at Barcelona.

The Campos Racing driver was 0.135 seconds off the pole position time from last year, and was 0.16s faster than anyone else in the third session of the test.

PHM Racing and DAMS were the first teams to head out at the start. Others followed soon after, but conditions were unrepresentative as the track temperature was under 15ºC.

Several drivers faced difficulty turning their cars as they joined the fast lane of the pitlane. MP Motorsport’s Dennis Hauger even brushed the pit wall with his front wing while doing so.

Towards the end of the first hour of running, Trident put the soft compound tyres on both of its cars. Roman Stanek lowered the pace to 1m24.392s, with his team-mate Richard Verschoor 0.308s behind. DAMS’ Juan Manuel Correa joined them in doing a qualifying simulation, and was half a second slower than Stanek. ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins meanwhile was fastest of those using the hard compound, having set a 1m25.399s.

Both Trident drivers did another qualifying simulation, and Verschoor knocked 0.190s off the benchmark pace.

A brief red flag period followed as Rodin Motorsport’s Ritomo Miyata stopped at turn 10. His car was quickly recovered and he was soon back on track once it went green again.

Campos’s Isack Hadjar was next to the top, setting a 1m23.881s. Hauger, Rodin Motorsport’s Zane Maloney and ART GP’s Zak O’Sullivan also improved, although Hauger was the only one of them to break into the 1m23s. Marti’s turn came 10 minutes later and the Spaniard bettered his team-mate by 0.181s.

At the end of the second hour of running, Martins rose to second place. Hauger also found a small 0.018s gain on his next run to go third fastest.

Drivers devoted the end of the morning to race runs. Most of them did so on the hard compound, while Trident fitted the soft tyre.

Morning session results