Alexander Albon stepped up a spot overnight to take the day two honours with the fastest time in this morning’s FIA Formula 2 Championship test session in Barcelona, grabbing the top spot from Johnny Cecotto and Artem Markelov by 0.175s, while Nyck De Vries stole the top spot this afternoon in a session largely dedicated to race simulations, ahead of PREMA pairing Antonio Fuoco and Charles Leclerc.

The Thai driver topped this morning’s session with a time of 1:28.225 under sunny conditions, claiming the top spot in the final hour of a session which was stopped twice by red flags: first to allow the circuit operators to inspect a section of the track which has had heavy recent use by the Formula 1 teams, and secondly as a result of Gustav Malja stopping on track.

The session saw a lot of competition between the teams for the top spot, initially from Oliver Rowland and Norman Nato before Albon annexed P1, and although Cecotto got to within a hundredth of his time, the rest of the field was unable to close down the Thai driver’s time.

The afternoon’s session, by contrast, was largely about race simulations, and with no on-track incidents the teams were largely satisfied with their progress. Jordan King led Sean Gelael and Ralph Boschung for the first half of the session, with Sergio Canamasas popping up to P2 with an hour remaining, but in the final half hour a number of the drivers turned their attention to lap times once again.

Fuoco was the first driver to blast through the race lap times, with teammate Leclerc soon following suit in P2, but De Vries soon emerged, taking two consecutive fastest laps to annex the top spot with a lap time of 1:29.223, grabbing P1 by 0.378s as the session wound down ahead of the PREMA pair.

Tomorrow is the final day of this test: the circuit will open once more at 9:00 CET.

Day 1 Morning results *

Driver

Team

Laptime

Laps

1.

Alexander Albon

ART Grand Prix

1:28.225

35

2.

Johnny Cecotto

Rapax

1:28.250

28

3.

Artem Markelov

RUSSIAN TIME

1:28.410

42

4.

Nicholas Latifi

DAMS

1:28.429

26

5.

Norman Nato

Pertamina Arden

1:28.445

26

6.

Luca Ghiotto

RUSSIAN TIME

1:28.541

27

7.

Oliver Rowland

DAMS

1:28.642

25

8.

Antonio Fuoco

PREMA Racing

1:28.655

24

9.

Jordan King

MP Motorsport

1:28.722

24

10.

Charles Leclerc

PREMA Racing

1:28.805

29

11.

Louis Deletraz

Racing Engineering

1:28.887

33

12.

Nobuharu Matsushita

ART Grand Prix

1:29.040

35

13.

Sergio Sette Camara

MP Motorsport

1:29.184

32

14.

Ralph Boschung

Campos Racing

1:29.248

33

15.

Sergio Canamasas

Trident

1:29.337

26

16.

Nyck De Vries

Rapax0.378s

1:29.429

25

17.

Sean Gelael

Pertamina Arden

1:29.906

14

18.

Roberto Merhi

Campos Racing

1:30.085

34

19.

Nabil Jeffri

Trident

1:30.588

26

20.

Gustav Malja

Racing Engineering

     –

32

*Car no.4 (Malja) all lap times deleted: car found underweight

Day 1 Afternoon results

Driver

Team

Laptime

Laps

1.

Nyck De Vries

Rapax

1:29.223

28

2.

Antonio Fuoco

PREMA Racing

1:29.601

50

3.

Charles Leclerc

PREMA Racing

1:29.602

33

4.

Johnny Cecotto

Rapax

1:29.847

28

5.

Roberto Merhi

Campos Racing

1:30.053

31

6.

Jordan King

MP Motorsport

1:30.127

41

7.

Sergio Canamasas

Trident

1:30.404

33

8.

Nabil Jeffri

Trident

1:30.518

31

9.

Sean Gelael

Pertamina Arden

1:30.680

37

10.

Ralph Boschung

Campos Racing

1:30.885

31

11.

Gustav Malja

Racing Engineering

1:32.932

44

12.

Luca Ghiotto

RUSSIAN TIME

1:33.557

30

13.

Oliver Rowland

DAMS

1:33.723

27

14.

Nicholas Latifi

DAMS

1:33.813

29

15.

Louis Deletraz

Racing Engineering

1:33.864

42

16.

Artem Markelov

RUSSIAN TIME

1:33.867

38

17.

Alexander Albon

ART Grand Prix

1:33.991

54

18.

Nobuharu Matsushita

ART Grand Prix

1:34.073

50

19.

Norman Nato

Pertamina Arden

1:34.466

38

20.

Sergio Sette Camara

MP Motorsport

1:34.887

38