Megane: Valencia test notes 2005-11-25

Campanico and Badey in great form!

The Megane Trophy drivers had their first test in preparation of the forthcoming season. A total of seven teams completed two days of testing in Valencia. The drivers will have another two sessions of joint testing on the Paul Ricard HTTT circuit, but that will be in 2006 Today, Cesar Campanico demostrated that he is in great form!

Ludovic Badey, third overall in the 2005 Eurocup Megane Trophy, will be competing in the 2006 Championship with a new Team: TDS. The Frenchman was the quickest driver at the end of the first day of testing, followed very closely by Cesar Campanico, the Portuguese ace "racing for Belgium", who has already climbed onto the Eurocup podium on several occasions this year.

These two drivers took it in turns to lead the timesheets during the two days of testing. On day 1, Badey was in command in the morning and the Portuguese driver took over at the top of the monitors in the second session. Tech 1 Racing also showed some great form on the first day, with both Simon Abadie and young driver Mathieu Lahaye only 0.03 seconds adrift of the best lap. Another French driver joined the Team for this test, Adrian Pavot.

In other news, Marc Benz, winner of the 2005 Junior Championship, took part in the test sessions in a Megane Trophy car from Oregon Team, the strong Italian outfit, who had Andrea Belicchi, one of the strongest drivers from the Eurocup Formula Renault V6, testing for them. The Italian outfit also invited Max Fantini to test with them.

Teams and drivers packed up all their equipment this afternoon, after accomplishing their work having tested for another 7 hours today. Yesterday's mild temperatures were replaced by a freezing wind, although the sun did manage to put in an appearance! It was enough to make the times drop constantly and for Cesar Campanico to achieve the fastest lap of the morning session and the fastest overall, more than half a second quicker than Badey.

Badey and Italian driver Andrea Belicchi were however the only drivers to join Campanico in lapping below 1'40".

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