Mercedes junior Paul Aron tops Formula Renault Eurocup test at Spa

Photo: Clément Luck / DPPI

Mercedes-AMG Formula 1 junior Paul Aron went fastest in Formula Renault Eurocup’s pre-event test at Spa-Francorchamps on Wednesday.

The first three-hour session was led by Aron’s ART Grand Prix team-mate Victor Martins, who often had a gap of over two seconds on the rest of the field on the timesheet in the wet conditions.

In the final half-hour of that session he bettered his own pace by several seconds, and it wasn’t until there was five minutes to go that improvments from other drivers brought them to comfortably within two seconds of Martins.

Arden’s Alex Quinn was first to do so, before MP Motorsport’s Franco Colapinto got within 1.595s of Martins, and Aron then used his final lap to get even closer.

MP’s Kas Haverkort, expected to be making his second Eurocup appearance this weekend, was the early pacestter in the dry second session, before Martins and then Quinn took over at the top.

Colapinto was quickest with 70 minutes to go, and remained at the top for almost half of the remaining time until Martins and Aron lowered the pace into 2m17.3s territory.

Quinn became the first driver to lap in the 2m16s in the final 15 minutes, and Aron used his last lap to take spot by 0.019s with a 2m16.950s lap.

FA Racing’s Tijmen van der Helm jumped up to third place at the end, a further 0.022s behind, with Martins shuffled down to fourth and Bhaitech’s Lorenzo Colombo showing some encouraging pace in fifth.

Martin’s main title rival Caio Collet was half a second down in seventh place, but ahead of title outsiders Colapinto and David Vidales (JD Motorsport).

Test results