Stromsted comfortably quickest on day two of FREC’s Hockenheim test

Photo: FRECA

Race Performance Motorsport’s Noah Stromsted topped day two of Formula Regional European Championship’s pre-season Hockenheim test.

The morning session lasted two hours-and-40 minutes, and Stromsted was the early pacesetter by 2.4 seconds. Ruiqi Liu usurped him 13 minutes in, setting a 1m55.560s, then Pedro Clerot lowered the pace to 1m48.010s after four successive improvements.

Enzo Deligny then Zachary David went top after 25 minutes, but a minute later Clerot reclaimed first place with a 1m47.187s.

Tuukka Taponen broke into the 1m46s shortly after, then Deligny got back ahead. Taponen waited before setting a 1m45.879s on a near-empty track, and improved three times over the next 10 minutes to bring the pace down to 1m44.678s. By that point half of the 33-car field had set laps, and Taponen was quickest by over a second.

He was knocked off top spot by a 1m43.783s from Costa Toparis. He spent seven minutes in first place before Stromsted went on a storming run of four personal bests in a row. The last of those, a 1m39.066s, meant he ended the first hour with a 4.717s gap to Toparis in second place.

Two more improvements brought the pace down to 1m38.113s, then Rafael Camara scraped ahead by 0.066s. Prema soon became the team to beat, with Camara, James Wharton and Ugo Ugochukwu trading fastest laps until day one pacesetter Evan Giltaire set a 1m36.615s an hour-and-a-half in. By that point Taponen and Clerot were down in 30th and 34th.

Stromsted got within 0.053s of Giltaire five minutes later, then Badoer broke into the 1m35s before Lena Buhler caused a red flag stoppage. Nikita Bedrin went fastest by 0.036s after the restart, then Stromsted returned to the top entering the third hour of running as the track got busy.

He had improved to 1m35.389s before Romain Andriolo brought out red flags, then there was a stoppage caused by Giovanni Maschio with seven minutes to go. The session restarted and there were 17 drivers who met the chequered flag but none could beat Stromsted, who ended up fastest by 0.05s over Roman Bilinski and 0.253s over Badoer. A second covered the top 21.

The afternoon session lasted three hours-and-55 minutes, and Maschio rebounded by being the pacesetter through most of the first half-hour (which was interrupted by a red flag period). Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi went quickest 32 minutes in, then five minutes later Ugochukwu set a 1m36.214s to go fastest.

Camara bettered him three minutes later, setting a 1m35.948s that was the benchmark for 15 minutes before Alessandro Giusti posted a 1m35.834s.

Giltaire edged ahead early in the second hour, then Wharton set a 1m35.677s that went unbeaten for 45 minutes. There was a brief stoppage in that time.

Ugochukwu started the third hour with a 1m35.563s, and nine seconds later Wharton set a 1m35.536s. Camara got within 0.001s of that, but nobody else got close until Stromsted set a 1m34.852s after two hours-and-22 minutes.

There was another red flag period, then Badoer rose to second with a lap 0.41s slower than Stromsted’s. There was minimal action in the last hour, and the top five went unchanged while Alex Sawer and Costa Toparis jumped to sixth and seventh. Eight drivers failed to improve on their morning pace.

Day two results