Prema’s Wharton fastest in first pre-season FREC test at Barcelona

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Prema’s James Wharton was fastest in Formula Regional European Championship’s first pre-season test at Barcelona.

Ugo Ugochukwu started testing on top, setting a 1m36.551s in Tuesday’s first session to lead team-mate Wharton by 0.065 seconds. Van Amersfoort Racing’s Ivan Domingues was 0.449s behind in third, with G4 Racing’s Romain Andriolo a further 0.028s back in fourth.

Only three others got within a second of the pace, but the top 25 was covered by 1.879s. G4’s Kanato Le and KIC Motorsport’s Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi were absent.

Domingues lowered the pace to 1m36.343s in session two, leading Sainteloc Racing’s Matteo de Palo by 0.242s, R-ace GP’s Tuukka Taponen by 0.302s and Sainteloc’s Theophile Nael by 0.423s. A second covered the top 14, with Le and Bhirombhakdi absent again along with ART Grand Prix’s Yaroslav Veselaho.

Prema’s quartet, MP Motorsport’s Valerio Rinicella and ART GP duo Evan Giltaire and Lena Buhler were the only drivers who did not improve.

Ugochukwu, Wharton and Domingues were on top again in session three, with a gap of 0.09s between the top two and 0.172s to third. But Ugochukwu was slower than before, setting a 1m37.080s. The top eight were spread on pace by 0.91s, with a further second down to 20th place.

Veselaho skipped another session, and the only driver to improve was Race Performance Motorsport’s Edgar Pierre.

VAR’s Pedro Clerot set a new 1m36.281s benchmark in session four, with team-mates Brando Badoer and Domingues 0.112s and 0.186s behind respectively. Five other drivers were within 0.5s of the pace, with 0.992s covering the top 17.

There were 17 improvers, G4’s Jesse Carrasquedo Jr was absent and Bhirombhakdi left the pits but returned to them without recording a laptime.

Wednesday was significantly faster, and Wharton lowered the pace to 1m35.614s in the day’s opening session. He was quickest by 0.066s over Badoer, with R-P-M’s Noah Stromsted 0.248s and R-ace’s Enzo Deligny 0.274s behind in second and third.

Clerot just failed to break the 1m36s barrier in fourth, and was only 0.065s ahead of seventh place. There were tight gaps further down the timesheet too, with the top 18 split by 0.995s, the top 24 all lapping sub-1m37s and 1.98s covering the top 29. De Palo and Trident’s Roman Bilinski and Ruiqi Liu were the only non-improvers.

In contrast, KIC’s Costa Toparis was the only driver to find more pace in session six as Stromsted led the way with a 1m36.291s. He had a gap of 0.399s to ART GP’s Alessandro Giusti, with Wharton and Ugochukwu 0.466s and 0.491s behind in third and fourth and with 1.87s covering the top 18.

Nael set a 1m37.583s to top session seven by 0.255s over Badoer. Bhirombhakdi was third, 0.488s behind, and Topari was fourth.

Badoer set a 1m36.713s early in session eight which kept him on top to the end by 0.094s over Nael. Taponen, Deligny and team-mate Zachary David filled the next positions and were within 0.3s of Badoer. The top 10 were covered by 0.891s, with just 21 drivers recording laptimes although only MP’s Nikita Bedrin, Nikhil Bohra and Rinicella failed to leave the pits. Veselaho was the sole driver to improve.

Giltaire stopped on track with a few minutes to go, prompting everyone to head to the pits.

Test results