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Australia
Practice report

Stoffel Vandoorne sets the pace

ART ace quickest in Budapest free practice

Stoffel Vandoorne

Stoffel Vandoorne

GP2 Media Service

Mitch Evans
Mitch Evans
Mitch Evans
Mitch Evans
Felipe Nasr
Jolyon Palmer

Stoffel Vandoorne has made his intentions pretty clear regarding his ambitions for this weekend’s GP2 round in Budapest: the Belgian driver set the quickest laptime in today’s free practice in a 1:29.479. He edged Felipe Nasr out of the top spot for 0.006s. Stéphane Richelmi completed the top three.
 
The session opened under blue skies and in high temperatures. All twenty-six drivers fed onto the track on Pirelli Medium tyres, and it was Sergio Canamasas who set the early pace. However, Nasr was soon able to improve on the Spaniard’s laptime and moved up to P1 - a hairsbreadth ahead of   Vandoorne and Johnny Cecotto.
 
Series leader Jolyon Palmer was the first man to dip under 1m29s, but Nasr went three tenths of a second quicker than the Briton on the following lap to claim the top spot. Vandoorne also found some extra pace to move past Palmer and take P2 – two tenths slower than the Carlin racer. Fifteen minutes into the session, the ART Grand Prix driver went even quicker and with a laptime of 1:29.476 edged Nasr out of the top of the standings.
 
A minute later, a collision between Palmer and Cecotto took place at turn 2 which sent both men back into the pits. The Venezuelan driver’s session ended prematurely whilst the DAMS mechanics kept busy trying to fix some damage on Palmer’s front left suspension. He could re-join the action with eight minutes left on the clock, but was unable to improve on his personal best time.
 
At the chequered flag, Vandoorne still sat pretty at the top of the timesheet ahead of Nasr and Richelmi. Palmer finished fourth ahead of Mitch Evans, Cecotto, returnee Kimiya Sato, Adrian Quaife-Hobbs, Simon Trummer and Daniel De Jong.

Budapest – Free Practice

  Driver Team Laptime Laps
1 Stoffel Vandoorne ART Grand Prix 01:29.5 19
2 Felipe Nasr Carlin 01:29.5 21
3 Stéphane Richelmi DAMS 01:29.8 20
4 Jolyon Palmer DAMS 01:29.9 14
5 Mitch Evans RT RUSSIAN TIME 01:30.0 19
6 Johnny Cecotto Trident 01:30.0 12
7 Kimiya Sato Campos Racing 01:30.0 21
8 Adrian Quaife-Hobbs Rapax 01:30.0 20
9 Simon Trummer Rapax 01:30.1 20
10 Daniel De Jong MP Motorsport 01:30.2 19
11 Arthur Pic Campos Racing 01:30.2 19
12 Sergio Canamasas Trident 01:30.3 17
13 Tom Dillmann EQ8 Caterham Racing 01:30.3 19
14 André Negrao Arden International 01:30.4 18
15 Marco Sorensen MP Motorsport 01:30.4 20
16 Rio Haryanto EQ8 Caterham Racing 01:30.4 17
17 Conor Daly Venezuela GP Lazarus 01:30.5 14
18 Nathanaël Berthon Venezuela GP Lazarus 01:30.5 21
19 Stefano Coletti Racing Engineering 01:30.5 19
20 Raffaele Marciello Racing Engineering 01:30.7 20
21 Daniel Abt Hilmer Motorsport 01:30.7 19
22 Julian Leal Carlin 01:30.8 19
23 Rene Binder Arden International 01:31.0 19
24 Jon Lancaster Hilmer Motorsport 01:31.7 19
25 Takuya Izawa ART Grand Prix 01:31.2 18
26 Artem Markelov RT RUSSIAN TIME 01:31.2 19

 

 

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Edition

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