Johanny Cecotto has set the fastest time of Friday’s practice sessions at Hungaroring for Formula V8 3.5. The Venezuelan with his lap time smashed the track record of Robin Frijns in this circuit.
FP1
This weekend’s marked the debut of a newly-repaved asphalt laid at the Hungaroring. A condition that enabled the series, with the most powerful cars that ran so far at the revamped track, to reach a remarkable results. The race record, previously set by Alexander Rossi in 2012, was beaten by Matthieu Vaxiviere (SMP Racing) at the midpoint of the opening session.
The Frenchman ended up third just 0.047s away from Renè Binder (Lotus) in second position. Coming from Austria, for Binder this is almost a second home race given how close Budapest his to the border of his own country. Fourth timed lap for Tom Dillmann (AVF) took fourth place while Johnny Cecotto Jr rounded out the top-5 for RP Motorsport.
FP2
The morning session had already provided some excellent lap-times with Yu Kanamaru (Teo Martin Motorsport) coming close to the record but ending just half a second short in 1:28.762. René Binder (Lotus) scored second, 0.360s off the pace and Matthieu Vaxiviere (SMP Racing) being the first to break the race record lap (1:30.778) set by Alexander Rossi in 2012.
It’s been a remarkable result for Cecotto and for the whole RP Motorsport team. After making their series debut in Motorland Aragón, they scored P1 for the first time at the Hungaroring. Tom Dillmann also performed well for AVF, fighting hard with Cecotto to the line to take second, just 0.235s off the leader.
Kanamaru ended up third leading the equally competitive Matthieu Vaxiviere (SMP Racing) who scored fourth place in front of the best rookie of the day, Pietro Fittipaldi (Fortec Motorsports).
