Home News Sainz leads Red Bull Junior 1-2 on morning of second Aragon test day

Sainz leads Red Bull Junior 1-2 on morning of second Aragon test day

by Valentin Khorounzhiy
Photo: Asensi Carricondo / Renault Sport

Photo: Asensi Carricondo / Renault Sport

Red Bull Junior Team’s Carlos Sainz showed impressive speed in the opening session of Wednesday running at Aragon, topping the timesheets and breaking the previous lap record.

The young Spaniard, who is confirmed for a full-time drive with champion squad DAMS, overtook longtime session leader Pierre Gasly for first with thirteen minutes to go and would go on to further improve his benchmark lap.

Sainz’s top effort wound up being two tenths quicker than Oliver Rowland‘s previous record-breaking lap from day one.

Behind the DAMS driver, fellow Red Bull junior Gasly held on to second. The Frenchman stalled the car on-track early in the session but recovered to show frontrunning pace later on. He led the majority of the final hour of running, but couldn’t match Sainz in his last-minute stint.

Draco’s Pietro Fantin continued to show strong testing form in third, ahead of Strakka’s contender Will Stevens and Fortec’s Sergey Sirotkin.

Jazeman Jaafar put ISR’s sole present machine in P6, narrowly ahead of Frenchmen Norman Nato and Matthieu Vaxiviere. Matias Laine and Zoel Amberg completed the top ten.

Session results
Pos. Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Carlos Sainz DAMS 1:38.340 36
2 Pierre Gasly Arden Motorsport 1:38.828 0.488 29
3 Pietro Fantin International Draco Racing 1:38.983 0.643 31
4 Will Stevens Strakka Racing 1:39.107 0.767 21
5 Sergey Sirotkin Fortec Motorsports 1:39.231 0.891 18
6 Jazeman Jaafar ISR 1:39.308 0.968 34
7 Norman Nato DAMS 1:39.323 0.983 32
8 Matthieu Vaxiviere Lotus 1:39.334 0.994 32
9 Matias Laine Strakka Racing 1:39.341 1.001 23
10 Zoel Amberg AVF 1:39.359 1.019 35
11 Marlon Stockinger Lotus 1:39.405 1.065 26
12 Nigel Melker Tech 1 Racing 1:39.474 1.134 34
13 Nikolay Martsenko Comtec Racing 1:39.488 1.148 22
14 Luca Ghiotto International Draco Racing 1:39.657 1.317 23
15 Meindert van Buuren Pons Racing 1:40.051 1.711 34
16 Will Buller Arden Motorsport 1:40.094 1.754 26
17 Oliver Rowland Fortec Motorsports 1:40.451 2.111 26
18 Tom Dillmann Pons Racing 1:40.485 2.145 34
19 Marco Sorensen Tech 1 Racing 1:40.541 2.201 17
20 Roberto Merhi Zeta Corse 1:40.577 2.237 25
21 Beitske Visser AVF 1:41.365 3.025 29
22 Liam Venter Comtec Racing 1:41.440 3.100 26
23 Roman Mavlanov Zeta Corse 1:42.731 4.391 21