Christian Lundgaard led a ART Grand Prix 1-2 with Sebastian Fernandez on Day 1 of 2019 FIA Formula 3 (F3) Championship post-season test at Valencia.
Renault junior Lundgaard put in a stunning lap of 1m21.370s during the last 10 minutes of the first day at Valencia to top the timesheets ahead of ART teammate Fernandez, who set a 1m21.599s as Sauber Junior Team by Charouz’s Alexander Smolyar was third.
The SMP Racing driver set a 1m21.613s lap to push Jenzer Motorsport’s Lirim Zendeli (1m21.685s) to fourth, after he was fastest in the morning session. The Trident pair of Alessio Lorandi and Devlin Defrancesco finished in fifth and sixth respectively.
Lorandi is making a return to F3 after a year out. Hitech GP and Red Bull junior Yuki Tsunoda was seventh, with two returning drivers Ferdinand Habsburg (ART) and Dan Ticktum (Carlin) were eighth and ninth as they prepare for Macau GP.
The Top 10 was then rounded out by Prema’s Logan Sargeant as HWA Racelab’s Linus Lundqvist just missed out. The Day 1 of three-day F3 test started late following delays with the teams given an extra hour to set up. The run was hampered by rain as well.
It gave an opportunity to the drivers to use the wet tyres, but the track dried up quickly and stayed the same for the rest of the day. Outside the Top 10, Carlin’s Billy Monger only managed 45 laps in the day to finish 28th on his first time in a F3 car.
Other newcomers/notable runners Oscar Piastri (Prema), Jack Doohan (Hitech GP), Max Fewtrell (Hitech GP), Enaam Ahmed (Prema) and David Vidales (Campos Racing) ended up 13th, 18th, 19th, 25th and 27th respectively.
It was a fairly calm day with not much interruptions during the day as the first red flag only came out during the last 15 minutes of the second session when the Trident of Lorandi came to a halt on the track.
The times can be found here.
The report was written by Venkatesh P Koushik and edited by Darshan Chokhani
