Home News Vaxiviere quickest again in final FR3.5 test session at Jerez

Vaxiviere quickest again in final FR3.5 test session at Jerez

by Peter Allen
Matthieu Vaxiviere

Photo: Antonin Grenier/DPPI

Matthieu Vaxiviere again topped the times on the final afternoon of the Formula Renault 3.5 post-season test at Jerez, ahead of rookie Nyck de Vries.

Lotus driver Vaxiviere took the lead of the session inside the final hour, and improved again on his final lap to head the session by 0.920 seconds. He was nine tenths of a second off his morning benchmark, though.

FR2.0 Eurocup and Alps champion de Vries finished his first FR3.5 test with DAMS with second place, ahead of Pons contracted Oscar Tunjo. Another FR2.0 driver was fourth in the form of Russian Egor Orudzhev, who had switched from Fortec to Arden for day two.

Dean Stoneman was fifth in the second Pons car, while ISR’s pair of FR2.0 graduates Gustav Malja and Andrea Pizzitola both finished their week inside in the top eight, sandwiching Fortec tester Luca Ghiotto.

Richard Gonda led much of the afternoon for Tech 1 but slipped to ninth in the end, with Jazeman Jaafar completing the top ten for Fortec.

UPDATE: de Vries had lap times deleted at the end of the day for his car being overweight. This dropped him to tenth in the final classification.

Afternoon session results
Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Matthieu Vaxiviere Lotus 1:27.952 23
2 Oscar Tunjo Pons Racing 1:29.007 1.055 30
3 Egor Orudzhev Arden International 1:29.064 1.112 31
4 Dean Stoneman Pons Racing 1:29.151 1.199 17
5 Gustav Malja ISR 1:29.220 1.268 33
6 Luca Ghiotto Fortec Motorsports 1:29.240 1.288 41
7 Andrea Pizzitola ISR 1:29.389 1.437 33
8 Richard Gonda Tech 1 Racing 1:29.405 1.453 32
9 Jazeman Jaafar Fortec Motorsports 1:29.459 1.507 43
10 Nyck de Vries DAMS 1:29.531 1.579 37
11 Jordan King Arden International 1:29.598 1.646 40
12 Jimmy Eriksson DAMS 1:29.694 1.742 30
13 Jake Hughes Strakka Racing 1:29.697 1.745 30
14 Nicholas Latifi Lotus 1:29.734 1.782 24
15 Beitske Visser AVF 1:30.195 2.243 10
16 Dennis Olsen Strakka Racing 1:30.243 2.291 26
17 Pietro Fantin International Draco Racing 1:30.785 2.833 17
18 Bruno Bonifacio International Draco Racing 1:31.302 3.350 23