Simonazzi fastest as nine cars attend day one of Euroformula testing

Photo: Fotospeedy

BVM Racing’s Francesco Simonazzi was fastest on the opening day of Euroformula pre-season testing at Barcelona.

There were nine drivers at the test, with five of those having already been announced as racing in Euroformula this year.

Six of the nine cars were run by Motopark, and it is currently unclear how its entries may be divided this season after previously operating three of its six cars through its Japanese offshoot CryptoTower Racing Team.

Noel Leon, one of the Motopark drivers, was fastest in the first test session of the day with a 1m32.401s lap that put him 0.164 seconds up on team-mate Enzo Trulli, 0.216 ahead of Simonazzi and nine tenths of a second clear of Cian Shields and Vladislav Ryabov.

Shields, who raced in GB3 last year, was fastest early on before Trulli set a 1m33.587s lap to top the times. Leon then set a 1m32.705s, the first sub-1m33s lap, and remained in first place until the chequered flag came out.

Slowest of the nine cars was Effective Racing’s Vladimir Netusil, who was in the only HWA-powered car on track while the rest of the drivers were using Spiess engines.

Bryce Aron was the early pacesetter for Motopark in the second session, but was quickly usurped by Shields and then Leon who once again brought the pace down into the 1m32s.

He could only improve slightly in the second half of the session though, while Simonazzi was able to find more pace and his best effort was a 1m32.073s. Trulli was 0.188s behind in second place, and Leon was 0.440s back in third. All but Leon, Shields and Ryabov bettered their fastest lap from session one.

The only moment of drama during the session was when Juju Noda came to a stop in sector one of the lap. She was in a car being run by her father’s Noda Racing team, and has been testing privately in a Dallara 320 through this winter.

Noda was the only driver not to set her fastest lap in the final session, as the pace improved further. Leon and Ryabov spent time at the top during session three, but it was Simonazzi who came to the fore again and was the only driver to lap in the 1m31s.

He was almost a third of a second faster than Trulli, with Leon 0.422s back in third and Ryabov three quarters of a second slower in fourth. Aron and Shields were the only other two drivers within a second of the pace.

Day one results