Imola: Series practice 1 report

Filippi quickest in practice, Reid recovers

Free Practice 1 saw a strong warning launched by the championship leader. After hiding himself a bit in the morning, Luca Filippi decided to show that he is still the man to beat in Auto GP. To do that, he drove a perfect lap in the first Free Practice, stopping the clocks on 1'32"324 and leaving Giorgio Pantano half of a second adrift. Apart from the gap, the Italian driver was happy about the team's job and his second position, ahead of team mate Jonny Reid. Dominant in the first days of the Brno weekend, the kiwi driver was struggling a bit in the morning but his laptime in the Free Practice means that SuperNova did find the right set- up solutions for his car. Fabio Onidi was fourth in front of a steadily improving Stefano Coletti, now really at ease on the Lola-Zytek.

Coletti was just 1 tenth faster than Tambay, with the franchmen lapping with a full tank to try a race simulation. Behind Tambay was Walter Grubmuller, who improved his morning time to a 1'33"852 that was enough to stay in front of a DAMS duo made by Edoardo Piscopo and Duncan Tappy. Julian Leal, who lost the first testing session due to an electrical glitch, started to get acquainted with the track and was 10th. The other Trident Racing car wasn't on track: the mechanics didn't have enough time to repair the car after the morning crash and Federico Leo was forced to stay in the pits.

-source: auto gp