Ugochukwu leads Campos 1-2 on first morning of F3’s Barcelona test

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Ugo Ugochukwu led a Campos Racing one-two on the first morning of FIA Formula 3’s second post-season test at Barcelona.

The three-hour session began with sighting laps only, and there were two or three drivers on track at a time following that.

Hitech GP’s Michael Shin completed the first full lap 24 minutes in, and posted a 1m30.064s before pitting. Team-mate Jin Nakamura was then briefly alone on track and by the 40-minute mark everyone was in their garages.

MP Motorsport’s drivers, Nakamura and Rodin Motorsport’s Brando Badoer headed out five minutes later, and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Hiyu Yamakoshi joined the MP trio in posting laptimes.

The pace was lowered to 1m29.272s by MP’s Alessandro Giusti, and he had a 0.141s gap to team-mate Tuukka Taponen before improving to 1m29.135s at the end of the first hour.

Half of the field was on track as the second hour began, and 65 minutes in VAR’s Bruno del Pino usurpted Giusti by 0.004s. Many drivers were then pitlane-bound, and there were six active when Shin stopped at turn eight and triggered red flags.

Only 19 of the 30 drivers had recorded laptimes when the session resumed six minutes later, and heading straight out were ART Grand Prix, Campos and Prema’s drivers.

The track got busier, and five minutes before the halfway mark Ugochukwu went quickest in all three sectors with a 1m28.490s that put him on top by 0.641s. Nobody challenged that, since almost everyone was in the pits as the session’s second half began.

There were a few drivers heading out at a time thereon, with Ugochukwu still leading del Pino, Theophile Nael (Campos), Giusti, Brad Benavides (AIX Racing) and Ernesto Rivera (Campos).

Trident’s Noah Stromsted and Matteo De Palo finally set their first flying laps, while Nakamura and team-mate Fionn McLaughlin remained the only drivers without laptimes next to their names despite frequently being on track.

Stromsted jumped from 28th to second with 81 minutes to go, getting within 0.477s of Ugochukwu who responded with personal bests in sectors one and two before pitting.

The next change to the order came almost 10 minutes later as Prema’s Louis Sharp, James Wharton and Enzo Deligny became Ugochukwu’s closest rivals. They trailed him by 0.219s, 0.314s and 0.438s respectively.

Hour two ended with Stromsted improving to 1m28.857s to move ahead of Deligny, and he was alone on track as hour three began.

Ugochukwu lowered the pace to 1m28.322s with 47 minutes to go, and a few minutes later del Pino relegated De Palo sixth and ART GP’s Taito Kato, Yamakoshi and Rivera slotted into the positions behind.

Rodin’s Christian Ho, Badoer and Pedro Clerot then all got within half a second of Ugochukwu and into the top five, pushing Nael down to 13th.

Nael returned to track and with 32 minutes remaining set a 1m28.492s that put him second, 0.17s off Ugochukwu, and included the fastest final sector of anyone. There were no changes in the top 10 after that.

Additional reporting by Jacob Awcock

Morning session results