Noel Leon ends first day of F3 pre-season test on top

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Noel Leon set the best time for Van Amersfoort Racing at the end of the first day of pre-season FIA Formula 3 testing, just before a late red flag.

After a quiet morning session, a wet track was again declared 15 minutes into the afternoon, at which point 15 cars had been on track with nine of them setting times. Tim Tramnitz had been fastest, setting a 1m58.238s.

Around 10 minutes later, all three Trident cars emerged back on track, joined by Hitech’s Luke Browning and Campos driver Oliver Goethe. Goethe would go second fastest, followed by his team-mates Sebastian Montoya and Mari Boya, before Browning took top spot with a lap two seconds faster than the early Tramnitz benchmark.

Times then really began to fall just after the one-hour mark, with PHM pair Nikita Bedrin and Tasasnapol Inthraphuvasak initially trading top spot before the Rodin trio of Joseph Loake, Piotr Wisnicki and Callum Voisin took over the top three places.

That only lasted a few moments before Max Esterson went fastest with a 1m48.796s, his Jenzer Motorsport team-mate Charlie Wurz soon slotting into second.

It was at this point that Prema finally sent its drivers on track for the first time, and with an hour and 10 minutes left on the clock they took over the top of the timing screens. Gabriele Mini went quickest with a 1m46.952s, with Dino Beganovic going 0.118s slower in second and rookie Arvid Lindblad taking third, 0.644s off the pace.

With an hour to go, all 30 drivers had set a time, and Browning returned to third place to break up the Prema dominance.

Esterson and Wurz would both improve and go quicker than Browning once more, and they were later split by their team-mate Matias Zagazeta with just over 20 minutes remaining.

A flurry of faster laps then came inside the last 15 minutes, Leon taking over top spot with a 1m46.657s, just 0.015s quicker than Goethe. Tramnitz moved up to third and Santiago Ramos took fourth, with Mini demoted to fifth.

That was soon followed by the first and only red flag interruption with 10 minutes left on the clock, with neither Sebastian Montoya nor Piotr Wisnicki making it back to the pits.

The session resumed with less than two minutes left on the clock, and although some cars did return to the track, nobody could improve their times.

Afternoon session results