Carlin’s James Calado read the weather perfectly at Spa-Francorchamps  (Thursday) to top the timesheets in final official testing for the Cooper Tires British F3 races at the Belgian Grand Prix circuit.

After setting the best time on full wet settings in this morning’s session, the 21-year-old Racing Steps Foundation-backed driver correctly guessed that the track would dry sufficiently in the afternoon to allow dry settings on his Volkswagen-powered Dallara.

Calado went on to record a 2m 17.020s best lap, more than seven-tenths better than his nearest rival and team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne could manage. “We knew it was going to dry out,” said James, “so we put on slick tyres as soon as we dared and I got the best time on my final lap.” Calado was a double pole winner at Spa last year when he raced in Formula Renault.

William Buller achieved the third-best time for Hitech Racing, with ART’s invitational driver Alexander Sims fourth quickest and the leading Mercedes-powered runner.

It was a torrid session for National class runner James Cole, whose T-Sport machine broke a driveshaft early on. His team-mate Menasheh Idafar led the way in the class.

Official qualifying at Spa is scheduled for 8am BST tomorrow (Friday), with the first of the Belgian weekend’s trio of races at 1125 and the 20-minute sprint race at 1640. The 40-minute feature race takes place on Saturday. British F3 is sponsored by US tyre manufacturer Cooper Tire and is further supported by Sunoco Racing Fuels, Anglo American Oil Company and Mirror.co.uk

Cooper Tires British F3 International SeriesOfficial testing, Spa-Francorchamps 29/7/2010

Leading International & Invitation class times am / pm

1  INT James CALADO / GBR,  Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen  2m 36.769s / 2m 17.020s2  INT Jean-Eric VERGNE / FRA,  Carlin Dallara-VW  2m 38.051s / 2m 17.749s3  INT William BULLER / GBR,  Hitech Dallara-Volkswagen  2m 37.627s / 2m 17.788s4  INV Alexander SIMS / GBR,  ART Dallara-Mercedes  2m 39.527s / 2m 18.526s5  INT Lucas FORESTI / BRA,  Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen  2m 39.404s / 2m 18.554s6  INT Oli WEBB / GBR,  Fortec Dallara-Mercedes  2m 38.715s / 2m 18.715s7  INT Rupert SVENDSEN-COOK / GBR, Carlin Dallara-VW  2m 38.511s / 2m 19.669s8  INV Nicolas MARROC / FRA,  Prema Dallara-Mercedes  2m 38.649s / 2m 19.879s9  INT Adriano BUZAID / BRA,  Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen  2m 37.501s / 2m 20.257s10  INT Felipe NASR / BRA,  RR Dallara-Mercedes  2m 41.170s / 2m 20.355s11  INT Jazeman JAAFAR / MAS,  Carlin Dallara-VW  2m 39.186s / 2m 20.464s12  INT Gabriel DIAS / BRA,  Hitech Dallara-Volkswagen  2m 38.754s / 2m 20.506s etc

National Class1  Menasheh IDAFAR / GBR,  T-Sport Dallara-Mugen Honda  2m 41.467s / 2m 25.590s2  James COLE / GBR,  T-Sport Dallara-Mugen Honda  2m 43.592s / no time