Photo: Paul Davies Photography
Formula Renault 3.5 championship leader Oliver Rowland headed an interrupted second Friday practice session at the Nurburgring.
The Briton, a race winner at Silverstone last Sunday, sat on top of the times during the middle of the session and stayed there until a red flag brought an end to proceedings a couple of minutes early.
The Fortec driver’s time was four tenths better than the benchmark set in the morning session by Dean Stoneman.
The Strakka Racing pairing of Gustav Malja and Tio Ellinas – the other winner in Britain – finished up second and third respectively.
Swede Malja, a multiple winner at the Nurburgring in lower categories, was just 28 thousandths of a second adrift of Rowland, with Ellinas 0.195 seconds away.
Stoneman was fourth fastest ahead of Pietro Fantin and Rowland’s title rival Matthieu Vaxiviere.
Nyck de Vries took seventh followed by fellow Dutch driver Beitske Visser, with Nicholas Latifi and Bruno Bonifacio rounding out the top 10 quickest drivers.
The Carlin pairing of Tom Dillmann and Sean Gelael both stopped on track early in the session before getting representative times on the board, meaning they propped up the 20 runners.
Pons debutants Rene Binder and Yu Kanmaru were 16th and 18th respectively.
Session results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
| 1 | Oliver Rowland | Fortec Motorsports | 1:41.961 | 14 | |
| 2 | Gustav Malja | Strakka Racing | 1:41.989 | 0.028 | 14 |
| 3 | Tio Ellinas | Strakka Racing | 1:42.156 | 0.195 | 16 |
| 4 | Dean Stoneman | DAMS | 1:42.199 | 0.238 | 15 |
| 5 | Pietro Fantin | International Draco Racing | 1:42.235 | 0.274 | 17 |
| 6 | Matthieu Vaxiviere | Lotus | 1:42.392 | 0.431 | 14 |
| 7 | Nyck de Vries | DAMS | 1:42.400 | 0.439 | 15 |
| 8 | Beitske Visser | AVF | 1:42.697 | 0.736 | 18 |
| 9 | Nicholas Latifi | Arden Motorsport | 1:42.712 | 0.751 | 16 |
| 10 | Bruno Bonifacio | International Draco Racing | 1:42.884 | 0.923 | 16 |
| 11 | Jazeman Jaafar | Fortec Motorsports | 1:42.954 | 0.993 | 15 |
| 12 | Egor Orudzhev | Arden Motorsport | 1:43.030 | 1.069 | 15 |
| 13 | Aurelien Panis | Tech 1 Racing | 1:43.070 | 1.109 | 16 |
| 14 | Marlon Stockinger | Lotus | 1:43.101 | 1.140 | 13 |
| 15 | Roy Nissany | Tech 1 Racing | 1:43.104 | 1.143 | 15 |
| 16 | Rene Binder | Pons Racing | 1:43.318 | 1.357 | 14 |
| 17 | Alfonso Celis | AVF | 1:43.399 | 1.438 | 16 |
| 18 | Yu Kanamaru | Pons Racing | 1:43.773 | 1.812 | 15 |
| 19 | Tom Dillmann | Jagonya Ayam with Carlin | 1:50.970 | 9.009 | 3 |
| 20 | Sean Gelael | Jagonya Ayam with Carlin | 1:51.934 | 9.973 | 2 |