TRIDENT’S ANTONIO FUOCO SETS THE PACE ON FINAL DAY OF PRE-SEASON TEST

 

Trident and Ferrari Driver Academy’s Antonio Fuoco was quickest again on the third and final day of pre-season testing at Circuito Estoril in Portugal. The Italian’s best laptime of 1:27.293 was set in the morning session and was almost half a second faster than the best time set here last season with the previous generation car. Fuoco also led the way in the afternoon.

Blue skies and warmer temperatures greeted the GP3 paddock this morning. There was one addition to the driver line-up with Chinese Hongli Ye testing for Jenzer Motorsport. An early red flag halted the proceedings when Campos Racing’s Konstantin Tereshchenko spun. At the re-start, Arden International’s Jake Dennis was first to lap into the 1m27s ahead of teammate Jack Aitken.

It was a busy morning with the drivers concentrating on race simulations. ART Grand Prix’s Charles Leclerc stopped on track which was covered by a brief red flag. Once the session continued, Dennis improved on his own personal best laptime. Fuoco then flew to the top of the timesheet – bettering the Brit’s time by almost half a second.

The session was briefly halted again after Fuoco and Artur Janosz both stopped on track, and once the track was green there were 25 minutes left on the clock. At the chequered flag, Fuoco remained in P1 ahead of Dennis, Alexander Albon, Sandy Stuvik, Nyck de Vries, Kevin Jörg, Aitken, Tatiana Calderon, Matevos Isaakyan and Santino Ferrucci.

Following a one hour break for lunch, the afternoon session got underway with Janosz setting the initial pace ahead of the DAMS duo of Jake Hughes and Jörg. There was a small interruption to proceedings when Stuvik stopped on track. Once the session was live again, Janosz continued to head the timesheet with the drivers working through their programme of race runs.

Rookie Ye made contact with the barrier at Turn 2 and Jörg stopped on track at the beginning of the final hour. Alex Palou and Oscar Tunjo jumped up the order to second and third respectively once the track activity resumed. In the final 15 minutes, Parry’s stoppage at Turn 5 caused a final red flag, but there was still more action to come as Fuoco improved to demote his teammate Janosz to second by lapping two tenths quicker.

Fuoco remained unchallenged as the test session concluded; Janosz, Palou, Tunjo, Parry, Akash Nandy, Dennis, Hughes, Jörg and Ye completed the top ten.

The second pre-season test with be held at Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia on April 07-08 2016.

GP3 Series Press Release

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