Home Formula 2 Nato completes Racing Engineering sweep of Jerez GP2 test

Nato completes Racing Engineering sweep of Jerez GP2 test

by Peter Allen
Norman Nato

Photo: Malcolm Griffiths/GP2 Series Media Service

Norman Nato?returned to the head of the field on the final day?of the Jerez GP2 pre-season test to complete a clean sweep for the local Racing Engineering team.

The Frenchman, who also topped Tuesday’s running?before team-mate?Jordan King led Wednesday, set the day’s pace early in the morning with a?1m24.518s.

Arthur Pic was second quickest in the morning and topped the afternoon session, but a second down on his earlier pace.

ART, Prema and DAMS filled out the next six places in order, with Nobuharu Matsushita?ahead of?Pierre Gasly?and?Alex Lynn, and?Sergey Sirotkin leading?Antonio Giovinazzi and?Nicholas Latifi.

King and?Luca Ghiotto rounded out the top 10 in front of?Gustav Malja, who was second to his Rapax team-mate Pic in the afternoon.

Behind the Rapax duo were the two Russian Time cars of?Artem?Markelov?and?Raffaele Marciello?and then the Arden pair of Jimmy?Eriksson?and?Nabil?Jeffri.

Marciello caused two red flags having been dogged by gearbox problems all week. Matsushita and?Oliver Rowland?also stopped on track, while Jeffri and?Philo Paz Armand caused halts with spins.

Combined day three times
Pos Driver Team Session 1 Session 2
1 Norman Nato Racing Engineering 1:24.518 1:30.716
2 Arthur Pic Rapax 1:24.592 1:25.583
3 Nobuharu Matsushita ART Grand Prix 1:24.617 1:30.580
4 Pierre Gasly Prema Racing 1:24.652 1:30.570
5 Alex Lynn DAMS 1:24.677 1:30.840
6 Sergey Sirotkin ART Grand Prix 1:24.682 1:30.227
7 Antonio Giovinazzi Prema Racing 1:24.688 1:30.626
8 Nicholas Latifi DAMS 1:24.689 1:30.115
9 Jordan King Racing Engineering 1:24.747 1:31.096
10 Luca Ghiotto Trident 1:24.937 1:30.854
11 Gustav Malja Rapax 1:24.948 1:25.820
12 Mitch Evans Jagonya Ayam Campos Racing 1:25.072 1:27.410
13 Oliver Rowland MP Motorsport 1:25.120 1:28.761
14 Daniel de Jong MP Motorsport 1:25.134 1:28.857
15 Raffaele Marciello Russian Time 1:25.318 1:26.435
16 Artem Markelov Russian Time 1:25.339 1:26.140
17 Marvin Kirchhofer Carlin 1:25.404 1:28.620
18 Philo Paz Armand Trident 1:25.698 1:30.459
19 Jimmy Eriksson Arden International 1:25.819 1:26.629
20 Sean Gelael Jagonya Ayam Campos Racing 1:26.053 1:29.988
21 Nabil Jeffri Arden International 1:26.074 1:27.235