Photo: World Series by Renault
Ahead of the first round of the 2013 Formula Renault 3.5 championship at Monza, the series organisers decided to reimburse the teams for the cancelled second day of testing at Aragon by staging the final day of pre-season running on the Thursday right before the weekend.
The drivers got one afternoon session of running, which showed extremely close pace by the majority of the drivers, as, at certain points of the session, more than 20 runners were within one second.? The session was, at different points, led by the Fortec duo of Stoffel Vandoorne and Oliver Webb, P1’s Will Stevens and AV Formula’s Arthur Pic among others.
However, come the last hour of the session, the weather significantly deteriorated, making it so that only two people managed to put in really quick laps – Sergey Sirotkin and Pic, with the Russian narrowly ahead of the Frenchman. Stevens was the best of the rest in third, 0.7s behind the leading pair, while Antonio Felix da Costa and Eurocup champion Vandoorne rounded out the top five.
Danes Marco Sorensen and Kevin Magnussen were sixth and eighth respectively, split by the second Fortec of Webb. The top ten was rounded out by Lucas Foresti and Marlon Stockinger.
The two opening races are scheduled to take place this Saturday and Sunday, with the 26 drivers present at the tests making up the entry list.
Session results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
| 1 | Sergey Sirotkin | ISR | 1:33.817 | 39 | |
| 2 | Arthur Pic | AV Formula | 1:33.832 | +0.015 | 39 |
| 3 | Will Stevens | P1 Motorsport | 1:34.548 | +0.731 | 38 |
| 4 | Antonio Felix da Costa | Arden Caterham | 1:34.565 | +0.748 | 39 |
| 5 | Stoffel Vandoorne | Fortec | 1:34.579 | +0.762 | 49 |
| 6 | Marco Sorensen | Lotus | 1:34.617 | +0.800 | 48 |
| 7 | Oliver Webb | Fortec | 1:34.692 | +0.875 | 43 |
| 8 | Kevin Magnussen | DAMS | 1:34.708 | +0.891 | 40 |
| 9 | Lucas Foresti | Comtec | 1:34.955 | +1.138 | 43 |
| 10 | Marlon Stockinger | Lotus | 1:35.059 | +1.242 | 52 |
| 11 | Christopher Zanella | ISR | 1:35.117 | +1.300 | 37 |
| 12 | Carlos Huertas | Carlin | 1:35.153 | +1.336 | 39 |
| 13 | Matias Laine | P1 Motorsport | 1:35.157 | +1.340 | 29 |
| 14 | Daniil Move | Comtec | 1:35.180 | +1.363 | 41 |
| 15 | Nigel Melker | Tech 1 Racing | 1:35.294 | +1.477 | 32 |
| 16 | Nico Muller | Draco | 1:35.307 | +1.490 | 47 |
| 17 | Pietro Fantin | Arden Caterham | 1:35.351 | +1.534 | 38 |
| 18 | Jazeman Jaafar | Carlin | 1:35.411 | +1.594 | 48 |
| 19 | Andre Negrao | Draco | 1:35.433 | +1.616 | 38 |
| 20 | Yann Cunha | AV Formula | 1:35.454 | +1.637 | 45 |
| 21 | Mihai Marinescu | Zeta Corse | 1:35.496 | +1.679 | 41 |
| 22 | Mikhail Aleshin | Tech 1 Racing | 1:35.535 | +1.718 | 45 |
| 23 | Norman Nato | DAMS | 1:35.819 | +2.002 | 38 |
| 24 | Zoel Amberg | Pons Racing | 1:36.051 | +2.234 | 42 |
| 25 | Nikolay Martsenko | Pons Racing | 1:36.305 | +2.488 | 34 |
| 26 | Emmanuel Piget | Zeta Corse | 1:36.492 | +2.675 | 39 |