Jose  Maria  Lopez  leaves  Circuit  Paul  Ricard  tonight  with  a  new  lap  record  under  his  belt  after touring the 3.853km “3D” track solution in 1:12.547. The Super Nova International driver topped both morning sessions at the track over the course of the two-day test, setting his quickest time in the middle of Friday morning’s three-hour session.

Second quickest over the two days was Nelson Piquet Jr on a 1:12.716. The Piquet Sports driver set his fastest time in the final afternoon session to finish that particular three-hour period on top, shadowed closely by the ART Grand Prix car of Lewis Hamilton. The Briton posted a 1:12.736 to take the third quickest time overall.

Franck Perera posted the fourth fastest time overall with a 1:12.838 to give Dams a boost. And in only their second GP2 series test, the Trident Racing team once again had reasons to be cheerful as  Andreas  Zuber  again  showed  his  potential,  posting  the  fifth  quickest  time  overall.  Another driver to set his best on the final afternoon, Andreas’ 1:12.851 pushed Alex Prémat in the ART Grand car down to sixth overall after the Frenchman had been the pace-setter on the first day, putting in a best lap of 1:12.887 to head the field at the end of Day 1.

Just one thousandth of a second  behind  Prémat  in  the  overall  classification  was  Hiroki  Yoshimoto  who  took  his  BCN Competicion car around the track in 1:12.888.

Eighth quickest overall was Adrian Valles for Campos Racing. The Spaniard set a superb lap of 1:12.988  Friday afternoon  to  jump  up  into  the  overall  top  ten.  Ninth  went  to  Arden  International’s Nicolas Lapierre with a 1:13.108. The Frenchman set his time on the final morning to push Lucas di Grassi’s Durango into tenth on an overall best of 1:13.120, set on the afternoon of the first day.

This test marks the final time that the GP2 series will test at Circuit Paul Ricard before our mid- season break. From here, the series moves on to Barcelona for our third pre-season test of 2006, on  March  28-29.  Just  one  week  later,  and  the  teams  will  arrive  in  Valencia  for  our  final  pre- season test and first race weekend.

The  testing  times  here  in  France  have  been  incredibly  fast,  and  close,  with  the  top  15  drivers regularly  being  covered  by  one  second  or  less.  With  such  high  levels  of  competition  exhibited throughout  the  field,  everyone  in  the  GP2  series  is  looking  forward  to  the  next  test  with  great anticipation and expectation. Full times from each session are available online now at gp2series.com