Tsolov tops both sessions on first day of Bahrain F3 test

Photo: Red Bull

Red Bull junior Nikola Tsolov edged out Ferrari protege Tuukka Taponen to top both sessions on day one of the in-season FIA Formula 3 Championship test in Bahrian.

Almost an hour had passed at the start of the morning session before the Prema trio of Brando Badoer, Noel Leon and Ugo Ugochukwu put the first competitive times on the board, lapping almost 10s quicker than the early benchmark set by Laurens van Hoepen.

Rodin Motorsport became the next team to send its drivers on flying laps, with Roman Bilinski taking over top spot ahead of Louis Sharp, and Callum Voisin slotting into fourth behind Ugochukwu.

That was followed, with just over an hour of running remaining, by a red flag. All cars returned to the the pits, and immediately at the restart, Tsolov lowered the pace by half a second. the Campos Racing driver’s 1m49.336s would remain the quickest time of the morning, with Taponen coming closest to matching it for ART Grand Prix, 0.181s adrift.

Even entering the final half-hour, Trident’s drivers had only completed a few in and out laps, but championship leader Rafael Camara went third quickest in the closing stages in front of van Hoepen and Bilinski.

While many drivers including Taponen and Camara didn’t even double figures in laps completed, DAMS and Hitech joined Prema and Rodin as the busiest teams of the session with all their drivers hitting the 20-lap mark but not troubling the top times.

The afternoon session was considerably busier for most of the teams and there were representative times set from the very start, with Camara setting the best of them, a 1m50.062s that stood for much of the first hour. That was until DAMS’ Christian Ho set a trio of new fastest times. Team-mate Nicola Lacorte initially joined him at the top of the times, before Hitech’s Martinius Stenshorne then got within 0.008s of his best lap.

Ho spent an hour on top before Santiago Ramos briefly took over for Van Amersfoort Racing, only for Tsolov to become the first driver to beat his own benchmark from the morning session. Five minutes later he improved again.

The ART trio came to the fore as the session entered its final half-hour, with Taponen taking over top spot. The MP Motorsport roster also rose up the order, Alessandro Giusti taking second and Tim Tramnitz fourth.

With just over 15 minutes left, Tsolov went 0.014s faster than Taponen, setting a 1m48.901s. Tsolov’s team-mate Mari Boya matched Taponen’s time to the thousandth, but Taponen went on to set a fastest first sector before the session was halted five minutes early by a red flag for an incident that stopped Giusti in the final sector.

Freddie Slater rounded out the top 10 in the afternoon and overall after joining the field with AIX Racing.

Combined day 1 results