Saucy fastest again on first afternoon of F3 testing

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

ART Grand Prix’s Gregoire Saucy set the pace in the afternoon session of Formula 3’s first day of pre-season testing, having done the same in the morning.

There was far more track action than in the earlier session, with Jenzer Motorsport’s Nikita Bedrin initially setting the pace and with 17 cars heading out on track in the first seven minutes.

Trident’s Gabriel went to the top when the first representative laptimes came in after 10 minutes, heading team-mate Leonardo Fornaroli and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Caio Collet who moved up to second place after 17 minutes had passed.

Oliver Goethe put the third of Trident’s cars in fourth place, but was shuffled down to fifth by VAR’s Rafael Villagomez was the session reached the 20-minute mark.

Hitech GP was the only team that had not been on track in any capacity by that point, and it finally headed out at the end of the first hour of running.

New Alpine junior Gabriele Mini lit up the timing screens with his first lap, immediately going fastest with a 1m49.111s effort. Luke Browning, conducting a prize test for winning the 2022 GB3 title, slotted into fifth place and Sebastian Montoya went ninth fastest.

The trio went on another run and Mini improved by over half a second while Browning went second fastest. Another improvement at the halfway point of the two-and-a-half hour session from Mini brought the pace down to 1m48.446s.

Villagomez and Montoya disputed third place a few minutes later, with Hitech and VAR the only two teams on track, and Collet moved into second place ahead of Browning. VAR’s Tommy Smith climbed up to eighth, then as the session went into its final hour Villagomez returned to third.

Prema was the next team to head out, and they started to threaten the Hitech trio’s pace. Mini responded by setting a 1m48.214s, with Prema’s Zak O’Sullivan going second fastest and then team-mate Paul Aron lapping within 0.033s of Mini.

Aron set a 1m47.889s to go top with 40 minutes remaining, with O’Sullivan now second. The ART GP drivers had now joined them on track, and Kaylen Frederick rose to fourth before Saucy set a session-topping 1m47.692s with 37 minutes to go.

The track was quieter again after that, with Franco Colapinto being shown a technical flag, Campos Racing’s Pepe Marti going third fastest with 27 minutes remaining, then Saucy improving in the final 10 minutes to secure first place.

Frederick improved in fourth, and team-mate Nikola Tsolov moved into eighth place.

Browning got himself back into sixth with five minutes to go, before yellow flags at turn three stopped anyone else from improving and most drivers headed back to the pits to end their day.

Afternoon session results