Young guns dominate last testing day at Paul Ricard, but Maldonado ends on top spot

Pastor Maldonado ended both three testing days at the top of the timing sheet in Le Castellet. He clocked  in  a  best  laptime  of  1:09.784  this  afternoon. 

This  last  day  was  also  marked  by  rookies’ strong performances starting with Jules Bianchi who claimed this morning’s top spot. In a drying morning session on a 2D short configuration track and using soft tyres, ART placed their rookie duo at the top of the timing sheet, Jules Bianchi half a tenth quicker than Sam Bird.

Behind the two men, Oliver Turvey had came in third, but his times were later deleted after his iSport car was found underweight, along with Dams’ Ho-Pin Tung. It was thus newcomer Christian Vietoris at Racing  Engineering  who  ended  up  with  the  third  best  laptime  of  the  session  ahead  of  Rapax’ Pastor Maldonado.

Unable to complete one lap yesterday afternoon following an unfortunate crash at  the  pitlane  exit,  rookie  Marcus  Ericsson  from  Super  Nova  ended  in  fifth  place  ahead  of  Dani Clos, J?r?me d’Ambrosio, Charles Pic, Sergio Perez and Alberto Valerio.

In  the  afternoon,  stopped  by  six  red  flags,  the  young  guns  kept  on  showing  strong  form:  Super Nova’s Josef Kral dominated for most of the session until Vietoris took control of the field with one hour left on the clock while Maldonado moved up to P2.

The last red flag was caused by a collision between Ericsson and Adrian Zaugg fifteen minutes before the end.

When the session was green lighted again, the remainder of the pack got back into action and saw Maldonado claim the top spot in  the  last  two  minutes,  one  tenth  quicker  than  Bianchi. 

Both  men  lapped  the  track  in  less  than 1m10s. Ocean’s Fabio Leimer finished third ahead of Vietoris, Bird, Kral, Ericsson, Cecotto, Clos and van der Garde.

The  GP2  paddock  will  gather  again  in two weeks in Barcelona for the final pre-season collective test on April 7, 8 and 9.