Wurz pips Boya to top spot by 0.001s on second morning of F3 testing

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Charlie Wurz was fastest on the second morning of FIA Formula 3 Championship pre-season testing at Bahrain.

Teams were pleased to encounter a dry track on Monday morning, with the desert venue having been wet through the previous day and limiting running and laptimes.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Sophia Floersch laid down the first benchmarks in the two-and-a-half hour session, with Rodin Motorsport duo Piotr Wisnicki and Joseph Loake then taking over at the top.

Loake set a 1m50.083s lap 13 minutes in, which stood as the fastest time for 10 minutes before Hitech GP’s Luke Browning posted a 1m49.853s.

ART Grand Prix’s Nikola Tsolov went 0.782 seconds faster than Browning four minutes later, and he went unbeaten for 15 minutes. His time at the top was ended by MP Motorsport’s Kacper Sztuka setting a 1m48.452s.

There was one more change to the benchmark pace in the first hour, with Browning going 1.01s quicker than anyone else 52 minutes in.

It took a while for others to join him in lapping in the 1m47s, then Campos Racing’s Mari Boya lowered the pace even more by setting a 1m46.964s then pitting.

He led the way at the halfway mark of the session, with Tsolov in third with a 1m47.600s, his team-mate Christian Mansell in fourth a 1m47.662s and MP’s Alex Dunne in fifth with a 1m47.781s as the only drivers who had lapped sub-1m48s.

Trident’s Sami Meguetounif rose to fifth place 80 minutes in, then going into the final hour there was a flurry of improvements from across the field. Prema’s Gabriele Mini became Boya’s closest rival, setting a 1m47.304s, with Campos’s Oliver Goethe rising to third, Prema’s Dino Beganovic and Arvid Lindblad going seventh and eighth fastest and Jenzer Motorsport’s Wurz becoming the 11th driver to lap in the 1m47s.

The track then became quiet again, with only two or three drivers heading out at a time. Jenzer’s Max Esterson climbed to 10th with 35 minutes to go, then a minute later Wurz went fatest by 0.001s.

Matias Zagazeta pushed his team-mate out of the top 10 by going seventh fastest with 27 minutes left of the session, and two minutes later Trident’s Leonardo Fornaroli moved up to sixth place with a 1m47.564s.

Campos’s Sebastian Montoya did not even leave his garage until the final 21 minutes, and there was only 15 minutes to go when he set his first flying lap.

The track began to get busy again, but Meguetounif (in ninth place) and Montoya (in 30th and last) were the only improvers until Hitech’s Martinius Stenshorne went 18th fastest with eight minutes to go.

Trident’s Santiago Ramos rose from 15th to eighth with four minutes remaining, but there was no change at the top so it meant the 1m46.657s benchmark set by VAR’s Noel Leon on day one went unbeaten.

Morning session results