Photo: Jean-Michel Le Meur / DPPI
Two-time 2015 race-winner Egor Orudzhev ended the first day of testing in the renamed Formula 3.5 V8 series at Jerez with the fastest time in the afternoon session.
The Russian driver set a time of 1m28.083s, falling short of Yu Kanamaru‘s morning benchmark by 14 thousandths of a second.
After completing the fewest laps of anybody in the morning at just 19, Orudzhev was the busiest driver in the afternoon, clocking 45 laps.
The Arden racer hit the front just inside the final half an hour of running, which was interrupted by a red flag following a second off for his SMP Racing stablemate Matevos Isaakyan.
After the restart, Strakka-run Formula Renault 2.0 graduate Jake Hughes came closest to toppling Orudzhev, ending up 0.143s down.
Series runner-up Matthieu Vaxiviere was third for the new Spirit of Race team, with Hughes’ 2015 team-mate and new Eurocup champion Jack Aitken (Fortec) pipping GP3 frontrunner Marvin Kirchhofer (AVF) to fourth by 0.002s.
Kanamaru was sixth ahead of Gustav Malja and Louis Deletraz, with George Russell and Alfonso Celis rounding out the top 10.
Afternoon session results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
| 1 | Egor Orudzhev | Arden Motorsport | 1:28.083 | 45 | |
| 2 | Jake Hughes | Strakka Racing | 1:28.226 | 0.143 | 28 |
| 3 | Matthieu Vaxiviere | Spirit of Race | 1:28.300 | 0.217 | 34 |
| 4 | Jack Aitken | Fortec Motorsports | 1:28.438 | 0.355 | 26 |
| 5 | Marvin Kirchhofer | AVF | 1:28.440 | 0.357 | 27 |
| 6 | Yu Kanamaru | Pons Racing | 1:28.668 | 0.585 | 26 |
| 7 | Gustav Malja | Strakka Racing | 1:28.872 | 0.789 | 30 |
| 8 | Louis Deletraz | Fortec Motorsports | 1:28.952 | 0.869 | 30 |
| 9 | George Russell | Tech 1 Racing | 1:29.088 | 1.005 | 35 |
| 10 | Alfonso Celis | AVF | 1:29.561 | 1.478 | 24 |
| 11 | Richard Gonda | Lotus | 1:29.589 | 1.506 | 21 |
| 12 | Matevos Isaakyan | Pons Racing | 1:29.762 | 1.679 | 15 |
| 13 | Aurelien Panis | Tech 1 Racing | 1:29.932 | 1.849 | 34 |
| 14 | Jehan Daruvala | Comtec Racing | 1:29.988 | 1.905 | 32 |
| 15 | Nikita Zlobin | Carlin | 1:30.022 | 1.939 | 24 |
| 16 | Kevin Jorg | Arden Motorsport | 1:30.676 | 2.593 | 35 |
| 17 | Vladimir Atoev | Carlin | 1:30.933 | 2.850 | 22 |
| 18 | Mahaveer Raghunathan | Comtec Racing | 1:32.787 | 4.704 | 34 |