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Carlin's Carlos Sainz Jr tops practice for British and European F3 Championship round at Spa

Carlos Sainz Jr showed that he could be getting his faltering Formula 3 campaign back on track by topping free practice for this weekend's combined British/FIA European round at Spa

The Spaniard's Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen headed the sister car of British F3 points leader Jack Harvey as drivers from the UK series took a top-seven wipeout of positions in the afternoon session.

Harvey bounced back from an injector problem that caused him to miss most of the morning half-hour - the Lincolnshire man only rejoined the track in the last few minutes to get a read on handling, but showed no ill-effects in the afternoon session.

"It was good," said Sainz. "But track conditions were really strange. With the second set of tyres we were more than half a second slower. Jack had exactly the same problem so we think it's the track. Also, I had some misfires on the straights so we'll need to take a look at that."

Rather bafflingly bearing in mind the Carlin situation, Alex Lynn did find time on his second set of tyres to go third fastest in his Fortec Motorsport Dallara-Mercedes; the Essex lad narrowly heading his Puerto Rican title-contending team-mate Felix Serralles.

Jazeman Jaafar, the other man right in the mix for British F3 title glory, was fifth in the afternoon after topping the morning session. He headed Hannes van Asseldonk and Nick McBride, the Australian making a major step forward in competitiveness to go seventh in T-Sport's Dallara-Nissan.

With Sainz also registered for the FIA European Championship, he was well clear of his rivals in that contest. In fact it was a sons-of-rally-legends one-two as Tom Blomqvist was second among those cars and eighth eighth overall in his Ma-Con Dallara-VW.

Prema Powerteam's drivers, including FIA points leader Raffaele Marciello and Euro Series top dog Daniel Juncadella, were all some way adrift of the pace, although the Spaniard sat out a chunk of the second session. The team reported baffling oversteer on its Dallara-Mercs.

Adderly Fong headed the National Class in his CF Racing Dallara, although he crashed just before the end of practice at the left-hander before Pouhon.

Pos  Driver                Team/Car                Time       Gap
 1.  Carlos Sainz Jr       Carlin Dallara-VW       2m15.421s
 2.  Jack Harvey           Carlin Dallara-VW       2m15.622s  + 0.201s
 3.  Alex Lynn             Fortec Dallara-Merc     2m15.689s  + 0.268s
 4.  Felix Serralles       Fortec Dallara-Merc     2m15.722s  + 0.301s
 5.  Jazeman Jaafar        Carlin Dallara-VW       2m15.887s  + 0.465s
 6.  Hannes van Asseldonk  Fortec Dallara-Merc     2m16.092s  + 0.571s
 7.  Nick McBride          T-Sport Dallara-Nissan  2m16.422s  + 1.001s
 8.  Tom Blomqvist         Ma-con Dallara-VW       2m16.483s  + 1.062s
 9.  Felix Rosenqvist      Mucke Dallara-Merc      2m16.608s  + 1.187s
10.  Emil Bernstorff       Ma-con Dallara-VW       2m16.655s  + 1.234s
11.  Harry Tincknell       Carlin Dallara-VW       2m16.700s  + 1.279s
12.  Pietro Fantin         Carlin Dallara-VW       2m16.736s  + 1.315s
13.  Pipo Derani           Fortec Dallara-Merc     2m16.766s  + 1.345s
14.  Daniel Juncadella     Prema Dallara-Merc      2m17.007s  + 1.586s
15.  Fahmi Ilyas           Double R Dallara-Merc   2m17.061s  + 1.640s
16.  Geoff Uhrhane         Double R Dallara-Merc   2m17.135s  + 1.714s 
17.  Pascal Wehrlein       Mucke Dallara-Merc      2m17.180s  + 1.759s
18.  Raffaelle Marciello   Prema Dallara-Merc      2m17.266s  + 1.845s
19.  Lucas Wolf            URD Dallara-Merc        2m17.285s  + 1.864s
20.  Richard Bradley       Carlin Dallara-VW       2m17.301s  + 1.880s
21.  Michael Lewis         Prema Dallara-Merc      2m17.309s  + 1.888s
22.  Sven Muller           Prema Dallara-Merc      2m17.333s  + 1.912s
23.  Andrea Roda           Jo Zeller Dallara-Merc  2m17.820s  + 2.399s
24.  Adderly Fong          CF Dallara-Mugen        2m18.102s  + 2.701s
25.  Luis Sa Silva         Angola Dallara-Merc     2m18.568s  + 3.147s
26.  Sandro Zeller         Jo Zeller Dallara-Merc  2m19.051s  + 3.630s
27.  Spike Goddard         T-Sport Dallara-Mugen   2m19.233s  + 3.802s
28.  Duvashen Padayachee   Double R Dallara-Mugen  2m19.522s  + 4.101s
29.  Pedro Calbimonte      T-Sport Dallara-Mugen   2m19.869s  + 4.418s

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