Westley Barber (Wimbish, Saffron Walden) seized the initiative ahead of the weekend’s third and fourth rounds of the Formula Renault UK Championship after setting the fastest time in testing at Brands Hatch Indy Circuit yesterday.

The Comtec Racing star just edged Fortec Motorsport’s Mike Conway (Sevenoaks, Kent) into second position after posting a best lap of 44.393 seconds (99.43mph) at the Kent venue, a mere 0.041 seconds faster than the current championship leader.

Conway himself shaded Team Firstair’s James Murphy (Towcester, Northants) into third position while Comtec’s Susie Stoddart (Northampton) enjoyed her best session of the season so far with the fourth quickest time. Impressively, the top four drivers were split by less than a 10th of a second.

Eurotek Motorsport’s Ruben Carrapatoso was fifth fastest with a time of 44.518 seconds while Swede Alex Storckenfeldt rounded out the top six for Mark Burdett Motorsport after setting an identical time to the best posted by the Brazilian.

Oliver Jarvis (Burwell, Cambridgeshire) was the quickest of the Motaworld Racing drivers in seventh position with Manor Motorsport team-mates Paul Di Resta (Bathgate, West Lothian) and Cheng Congfu (Cottingham, Hull) eighth and ninth respectively. Team aka’s James Jakes (Cullingworth, West Yorkshire) was 10th overall with a lap of 44.694 seconds.

Just one second covered the quickest 24 of the 32 drivers involved in the test. Formula Renault UK returnee Stefan Soderberg, meanwhile, ended the four-hour session in 26th position for Hill Speed Racing with a best lap of 45.488 seconds.

Mike Conway currently heads the 2004 Formula Renault UK Championship standings on a perfect 68 points with Motaworld’s Joey Foster (Truro, Cornwall) second on 45 points and Team JVA’s John Byrne (Magham Down, East Sussex) third with 44 points.

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