Noel Leon fastest in Euroformula testing at Hungaroring

Photo: Fotospeedy

Motopark’s Noel Leon was fastest in Euroformula’s pre-event test day at the Hungaroring.

There were four 50-minute sessions on Thursday, with the last being the fastest for all but one of the drivers who contested it.

Session one began at 9am, and Juju Noda set the pace before the first representative laptimes came in after 20 minutes. Josh Mason, driving for Motopark’s Japanese offshoot CryptoTower Racing Team, posted a 1m40.309s to lead Motopark stablemate Cian Shields by 0.214 seconds.

Motopark’s Bryce Aron then lowered the pace to 1m36.953s, putting him over a second clear of Shields who rose to second, while local driver Berta was still yet to set a lap at the session’s halfway point and Leon had posted no flying laps.

In the 10 minutes that followed there was not too much track action, although Aron improved to 1m38.816s and BVM Racing’s Francesco Simonazzi became his closest rival.

Towards the very end there were more improvements, with Simonazzi going fastest with a 1m36.605s and Leon going just 0.06s slower on what was only his fifth lap of the morning.

Leon led the way in the first 15 minutes of session two with a 1m36.865s, then became the first driver to lap in the 1m35s.

Noda sat in second place, 0.656s behind, until the final minutes when she went to the top by setting a 1m35.628s. Leon ended the session 0.229s back as he also improved. No other drivers lapped sub-1m36s.

Despite the air temperature never going above 24°C, the track temperature surpassed 51°C in the afternoon and it meant session three was slower for most.

Simonazzi set a 1m36.847s on his second flying lap that put him in first plac but he was then unable to improve. Noda was first to surpass him but her pace also stagnated mid-session. A 1m36.300s put her 0.547s up on Simonazzi, who was not beaten by anyone else. Leon was slowest, only setting eight lap and none at a representative pace.

NV Racing’s Paolo Brajnik missed session four, which was cooler on track and therefore enabled quicker times to be set.

Leon put in the fastest time of the day on his penultimate lap, breaking into the 1m34s to lead Aron by 0.256s. Simonazzi was over half a second back in third, with Noda just behind in fourth, and only two other cars were within a second of the pace.

Vladimir Netusil was the only driver not to impove on his session three best, leaving down in ninth and 2.862s off Leon.

Test results