Palmer leads the way at Sochi

GP2 Series leader Jolyon Palmer had the perfect start to his weekend setting the best laptime of the free practice session at the Sochi Autodrom in a 1:46.083 – half a second quicker than closest rival Arthur Pic. André Negrao finished third.

The session opened in perfect conditions as the drivers fed onto the Russian track for the very first time on Medium Pirelli tyres. Palmer was quick to set the pace dominating the rest of the pack. Stoffel Vandoorne was the first driver to challenge the Brit, setting up a laptime two tenths slower than Palmer. Fifteen minutes into the session, the DAMS racer went on a flyer and extended the gap to Vandoorne by seven tenths whilst Pic moved up to third.

Vandoorne was then on a mission: mid-session, he found some clean air to dip under 1m47 and claimed the top spot. Pic and Felipe Nasr also improved to take P2 and P3 respectively. All the drivers re-joined the pits and when the action picked up again, Mitch Evans edged Pic out of P2 with a laptime just four hundredths slower than Vandoorne’s.

In the final minutes, Pic went quickest, but Palmer stole the Frenchman’s thunder with one minute left on the clock and reclaimed the top spot. At the chequered flag, Negrao found some extra pace to move up to third ahead of Vandoorne, Evans, Kimiya Sato, Johnny Cecotto, Nathanaël Berthon, Felipe Nasr and Tio Ellinas.

With all the drivers now more familiar with the Russian circuit, today’s qualifying session should deliver a great battle.

Sochi – Free Practice

	Driver	Team	Laptime	Laps
1.	Jolyon Palmer	DAMS	1:46.083	18
2.	Arthur Pic	Campos Racing	1:46.618	18
3.	André Negrao	Arden International	1:46.623	20
4.	Stoffel Vandoorne	ART Grand Prix	1:46.740	19
5.	Mitch Evans	RT RUSSIAN TIME	1:46.763	19
6.	Kimiya Sato	Campos Racing	1:46.781	18
7.	Johnny Cecotto	Trident	1:46.889	19
8.	Nathanaël Berthon	Venezuela GP Lazarus	1:47.027	19
9.	Felipe Nasr	Carlin	1:47.123	19
10.	Tio Ellinas	Rapax	1:47.359	20
11.	Jon Lancaster	Hilmer Motorsport	1:47.394	17
12.	Rio Haryanto	Caterham Racing	1:47.452	18
13.	Takuya Izawa	ART Grand Prix	1:47.474	20
14.	Raffaele Marciello	Racing Engineering	1:47.589	17
15.	Stefano Coletti	Racing Engineering	1:47.667	17
16.	Marco Sorensen	MP Motorsport	1:47.672	17
17.	Pierre Gasly	Caterham Racing	1:47.702	17
18.	Sergio Canamasas	Trident	1:47.857	19
19	Daniel Abt	Hilmer Motorsport	1:47.862	18
20.	Stéphane Richelmi	DAMS	1:47.882	18
21.	Simon Trummer	Rapax	1:47.903	19
22.	Rene Binder	Arden International	1:47.965	17
23.	Daniel De Jong	MP Motorsport	1:48.276	17
24.	Julian Leal	Carlin	1:48.508	11
25.	Sergio Campana	Venezuela GP Lazarus	1:48.623	18
26.	Artem Markelov	RT RUSSIAN TIME	1:48.707	17