R-ace GP’s Tim Tramnitz was fastest on day two of private Formula Regional European Championship testing at the Red Bull Ring.
In cool conditions there were several red flags during Wednesday’s running, and Tramnitz’s test team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto – fastest on Tuesday – set the pace early in the morning ahead of Prema’s Dino Beganovic.
In the final hour of the session there was trouble for Ricardo Escotto in Cram Motorsport’s Formula 4 car, which briefly led to the session being stopped. Arden’s Eduardo Barrichello had gone fastest at that point, and he stayed in first place until the final 11 minutes when Tramnitz went almost two tenths of a second faster.
Barrichello improved late on after a second red flag period but couldn’t reclaim top spot, 0.002s slower than Tramnitz.
Bortoleto ended up in third, and Arden’s second car driven by Joshua Duerksen was fourth fastest and within a tenth of the pace.
Beganovic was shuffled down to sixth, with a late effort by French F4 champion Esteban Masson putting him ahead in his MP Motorsport-run FA Racing car.
Joshua Dufek was fastest for MP’s main team through the first 45 minutes of the afternoon session, but the Italian F4 race-winner ended it down in 18th place in a session where few could match their morning pace.
Beganovic took over from Dufek at the top before Duerksen went half a second faster than anyone towards the end of the first hour. G4 Racing’s French F4 graduate Owen Tangavelou caused a red flag stoppage after that, and R-ace then made use of an empty track to send out Tramnitz and Bortoleto.
The pair went one-two, then for the remaining 90 minutes didn’t go any faster. Tramnitz went unbeaten though, and was actually 0.015s than his morning benchmark.
The next best improver was ART Grand Prix’s Mari Boya, who brought himself into the top 10 for the day.
FA Racing’s Sami Meguetounif caused the final red flag in an otherwise quiet end to running.
Prema’s Charlie Wurz was the fastest F4 driver with a 1m31.843s, 0.037s up on Escotto, and James Wharton was slowest.
Test results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tim Tramnitz | R-ace GP | 1m25.572s | 78 | |
| 2 | Eduardo Barichello | Arden | 1m25.589s | +0.017s | 85 |
| 3 | Gabriel Bortoleto | R-ace GP | 1m25.647s | +0.075s | 78 |
| 4 | Joshua Duerksen | Arden | 1m25.665s | +0.093s | 82 |
| 5 | Esteban Masson | FA Racing by MP | 1m25.730s | +0.158s | 76 |
| 6 | Dino Beganovic | Prema | 1m25.733s | +0.161s | 84 |
| 7 | Sami Meguetounif | FA Racing by MP | 1m25.792s | +0.220s | 83 |
| 8 | Pietro Delli Guanti | MP Motorsport | 1m25.857s | +0.285s | 72 |
| 9 | Mari Boya | ART Grand Prix | 1m26.027s | +0.455s | 88 |
| 10 | Dilano van’t Hoff | MP Motorsport | 1m26.163s | +0.591s | 102 |
| 11 | Laurens van Hoepen | ART Grand Prix | 1m26.184s | +0.612s | 90 |
| 12 | Roman Bilinski | R-ace GP | 1m26.260s | +0.688s | 81 |
| 13 | Matias Zagazeta | R-ace GP | 1m26.312s | +0.740s | 77 |
| 14 | Kirill Smal | Prema | 1m26.315s | +0.743s | 86 |
| 15 | Owen Tangavelou | G4 Racing | 1m26.385s | +0.813s | 86 |
| 16 | Levente Revesz | Arden | 1m26.416s | +0.844s | 92 |
| 17 | Leonardo Fornaroli | Prema | 1m26.453s | +0.881s | 85 |
| 18 | Nicolas Baptsiste | FA Racing by MP | 1m26.480s | +0.908s | 63 |
| 19 | Joshua Dufek | MP Motorsport | 1m26.493s | +0.921s | 78 |
| 20 | Daniel Ligier | G4 Racing | 1m26.557s | +0.985s | 71 |
| 21 | Christian Mansell | ART Grand Prix | 1m26.571s | +0.999s | 96 |
| 22 | Axel Gnos | G4 Racing | 1m26.933s | +1.361s | 86 |
| 23 | Cenyu Han | Monolite Racing | 1m27.269s | +1.697s | 43 |