Victor Martins tops opening morning of post-season F2 test

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins was fastest on the first morning of Formula 2 post-season testing at Yas Marina Circuit.

Rodin Carlin’s Zane Maloney was first to top the times, setting a 1m57.444s four minutes into the morning session before the first red flag interruption lasting five minutes.

It took until 33 minutes in for Maloney’s time to be beaten, with DAMS’ Juan Manuel Correa setting a 1m49.311s and then making another massive improvement on his next lap to 1m38.388s.

A minute later Trident’s Oliver Goethe stopped at turn 14 and red flags waved, with the session restarting after a stoppage of eight minutes.

Drivers were quick to head back out, but did not get a chance to improve as on his first flying lap Van Amersfoort Racing’s Enzo Fittipaldi got into trouble at turn seven and it led to a further six minutes being lost to a red flag period.

The first hour ended with Trident’s Richard Verschoor knocking 0.131 seconds off the benchmark pace then a minute later DAMS’ Jak Crawford going fastest by 0.412s with a 1m37.845s lap.

He was unable to improve on his next lap as red flags waved again due to a car stopping at turn eight. The next restart featured nine minutes of geen flag action before Carlin’s Ritomo Miyata – the reigning Super Formula champion – stopped at turn 11 and led to yet another red flag stoppage.

At the halfway point of the three-hour session there was a change at the top of the timesheet as MP Motorsport’s Dennis Hauger set a 1m37.349s to go fastest. He only briefly held first place as 23s later Martins became the first driver to break into the 1m36s.

Martins set a 1m36.972s, and two laps later improved to 1m36.895s. Another two laps after that he found a smaller gain of 0.043s, which kept him on top all the way to the chequered flag.

Fittipaldi set a 1m36.960s to get within 0.108s, but then pitted and spent most of the rest of the session in the garage.

Correa held third place with 35 minutes to go after setting a 1m37.091s, and 10 minutes later was demoted to fourth as Maloney set a 1m37.071s. But that lap got deleted for exceeding track limits at turn 16, and Correa was back in third until Crawford set a 1m37.006s with seven minutes to go.

The top three were all on track when the session ended, with ART GP’s Zak O’Sullivan and Hitech GP’s Amaury Cordeel the only other two drivers to meet the chequered flag and with most positions already settled with half an hour still left on the clock.

MP’s Franco Colapinto ended up fifth fastest, Maloney was sixth and just 0.268s off the pace, and Hauger ended the morning in seventh place. The top 11, completed by Cordeel, was covered by 0.958s and in total there were 15 laps deleted for 11 different drivers due to track limits abuse.

Morning session results