Palmowski fastest, Gademan has car-wrecking crash in F1 Academy test

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

F1 Academy held an in-season test in Jeddah over the weekend, which featured a car-wrecking crash.

Towards the end of the evening session on April 5, day two of the test, Prema’s Nina Gademan hit the barriers exiting turn five. The series put out two statements, revealing her car was too damaged for further use while saying Gademan herself had been discharged after precautionary hospital checks.

The test featured a three-hour afternoon session and two-hour night session on day one, with day two’s six hours of scheduled track action split equally across an afternoon and an evening session. Drivers faced the heat on day three with a two-hour morning session and two-and-a-half hours of afternoon running. Each driver had seven sets of tyres.

The track was sandy on Friday, so the first hour of testing was wasted. Rodin Motorsport’s Ella Lloyd was the benchmark driver once flying laps were set, and she posted a 2m08.281s that Campos Racing’s Alisha Palmowski got within 0.179 seconds of.

Palmowski and team-mate Chloe Chambers then lapped in the 2m07s, a pace Lloyd was able to meet as she improved to 2m07.232s in the final hour to return to top spot. MP Motorsport’s Maya Weug knocked 0.151s off the best time soon after, and went faster again on her next lap.

Almost half an hour later, Prema’s Doriane Pin set an unbeatable 2m06.543s, leading Weug by 0.049s and Palmowski by 0.132s. Lloyd and Gademan were within half a second of the pace, and at the bottom of the timesheet were Hitech GP’s three drivers. Aiva Anagnostiadis and Farah Al Yousef failed to set any flying laps.

Pin was first to reach a representative pace in session two, quickly beating her previous benchmark. Lloyd was first into the 2m05s, then in the final 10 minutes the pace was lowered further by Pin, team-mate Tina Hausmann and finally Lloyd who set a 2m05.367s to end on top by 0.033s. A further 0.007s behind was Pin, and Weug was 0.151s back.

Lloyd and Weug were the drivers to beat early in day two, then Pin set a 2m05.946s that stood as the fastest lap for over an hour-and-a-half before Lloyd recorded a 2m05.632s. Twenty minutes later, Palmowski lowered the pace in four successive laps and her 2m05.04s put her 0.041s clear of Weug and 0.336s up on Lloyd.

Gademan laid down the first flying lap of the evening, then Pin and Palmowski spent time on top. Weug later set a 2m05.33s that netted her first place by 0.045s, with a further 0.123s covering Chambers, Lloyd and Pin.

Red flags waved after Campos’s Rafaela Ferreira crashed, when Palmowski and Lloyd did the same and finally with Gademan’s incident.

Fastest laps were traded between ART Grand Prix’s Lia Block and Lloyd through the first 35 minutes of Sunday morning’s session, and Block earned top spot with a 2m05.824s. Chambers and Lloyd later got within 0.104s and 0.161s of that, as a second covered the top 11.

Hitech’s Nicole Havrda led the way in the final session until 39 minutes in when Lloyd lapped in the 2m06s. Chambers brought the pace into the 2m05s after that, and in the final hour Weug set a 2m05.405s to edge Chambers by 0.14s, Lloyd by 0.153s and Palmowski by 0.198s. However the only driver with a personal best was MP’s Alba Hurup Larsen.

Test results