Panis sweeps opening day of F3.5 Barcelona test

Panis, a former Caterham F1 junior and the son of grand prix winner Olivier, was quickest in the morning and the afternoon, both of his benchmarks good enough to top the day's running.

In the first session, the Frenchman took over at the top with 15 minutes to go and subsequently followed up with another improvement, his 1m30.835s lap ending up as the day's best.

Compatriot Tom Dillmann was almost half a second off in the runner-up spot, ahead of rookie Emil Bernstorff, Pietro Fittipaldi and Force India development driver Alfonso Celis.

In the afternoon, Panis again vaulted to the top in the final minutes, taking the spot off teammate Egor Orudzhev.

New Lotus signing Rene Binder then split the duo at the last second to clinch P2, while SMP's Matthieu Vaxiviere, who was runner-up with Lotus last year, headed Fittipaldi in fourth.

Of the newcomers, Bernstorff ended up eighth overall, with Johnny Cecotto in P15 and Giuseppe Cipriani rounding out the order.

Day 1 results

Pos.	Driver	Team	AM	PM
1	Aurelien Panis	Arden Motorsport	1:30.835	1:31.156
2	Tom Dillmann	AVF	1:31.289	1:32.810
3	Rene Binder	Lotus	1:32.630	1:31.295
4	Egor Orudzhev	Arden Motorsport	1:32.676	1:31.323
5	Matthieu Vaxiviere	SMP Racing	1:32.154	1:31.343
6	Pietro Fittipaldi	Fortec Motorsports	1:31.782	1:31.518
7	Roy Nissany	Lotus	1:33.087	1:31.654
8	Emil Bernstorff	Strakka Racing	1:31.682	1:31.909
9	Louis Deletraz	Fortec Motorsports	1:31.886	1:31.708
10	Alfonso Celis	AVF	1:31.821	1:32.246
11	Matevos Isaakyan	Teo Martin Motorsport	1:33.180	1:32.013
12	Yu Kanamaru	Teo Martin Motorsport	1:32.703	1:32.052
13	Beitske Visser	Strakka Racing	1:32.099	1:32.081
14	Vitor Baptista	RP Motorsport	1:33.362	1:32.242
15	Johnny Cecotto	RP Motorsport	1:33.258	No Time
16	Vladimir Atoev	SMP Racing	1:33.788	1:33.561
17	Giuseppe Cipriani	Durango Racing Team	1:38.392	1:38.031