Taponen tops the times in FREC test at Paul Ricard

Photo: FRECA

R-ace GP’s Tuukka Taponen set the pace at Paul Ricard in the second pre-season Formula Regional European Championship test.

The two-day test was split into a morning and afternoon session on each day, and Prema’s Rafael Camara was the driver to beat on Tuesday morning. He set a 1m57.321s to lead team-mate James Wharton by 0.057 seconds, with ART Grand Prix’s Evan Giltaire 0.21s behind in third.

Race Performance Motorsport’s Noah Stromsted was also within half a second of the pace, with the top 15 covered by a second. Towards the very bottom of the timesheet was Isaac Barashi, who was driving MP Motorsport’s #11 car. The team has signed Nikita Bedrin for the season, but he is also racing in FIA Formula 3 this year which means he will miss some races and also led to him being absent from Paul Ricard since an F3 test was taking place at Barcelona.

Eight of the 32 drivers failed to improve their pace in the afternoon, and while Taponen was the quickest of those who did a new personal best he came 0.171s short of matching Camara’s morning benchmark.

This time the top three were covered by 0.088s, with Sainteloc Racing’s Theophile Nael and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Brando Badoer the closest to Taponen. There was a pace spread of 0.853s in the top 19.

KIC Motorsport’s Alex Sawer missed Wednesday’s action, and Barashi did not head out in the afternoon. Every single driver on track improved their pace in the morning session, with Taponen lowering the pace to 1m56.669s.

Badoer was the only other driver to lap sub-1m57s, and was 0.141s behind, with R-ace’s Zachary David third fastest and 0.38s slower than Taponen. Camara, Giltaire and R-ace’s Enzo Deligny were also within half a second of the pace.

Down in 16th place was G4 Racing’s Kanato Le, who surprised in the afternoon by topping the times. He was the only driver to improve their pace (and therefore to have got faster with each session), and his 1m57.658s effort brought him up to 14th overall.

Nael was 0.069s behind in the session, with Badoer 0.194s back. Just 0.011s split Wharton and Giltaire in fourth and fifth. Taponen was only 11th fastest, and the top 17 were covered by 0.931s. In the combined timesheet, Le was the last driver within a second of Taponen’s pace.

Test results