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Marrakech Auto GP: Karthikeyan tops delayed practice

Narain Karthikeyan topped Auto GP's delayed first session of track action at round two of the championship in Marrakech

Saturday morning's 45-minute free practice session replaced two scheduled half-hour sessions that were cancelled on Friday owing to heavy rain.

Conditions were much improved for the substitute session, and four drivers appeared at the top of the timing screens in a dynamic final two minutes of running.

Zele Racing's Karthikeyan recorded his 1m29.271s effort seconds before the chequered flag, displacing Monza's opening race winner Sergio Campana by 0.669s.

Karthikeyan's time is an improvement on Sergey Sirotkin's 2012 pole position lap time for Euronova Racing.

Formula Renault 2.0 graduate Meindert van Buuren took intra-team honours in Manor MP Motorsport's three-car line-up in third.

The Dutch team is at full strength as Daniel de Jong embarks on a parallel Auto GP campaign this weekend, having missed round one in Monza while competing in the Malaysian GP2 meeting.

Robert Visoiu enjoyed several spells as fastest driver throughout the session and ended the morning in fourth, 0.007s ahead of Monza polesitter Riccardo Agostini - who survived a late trip straight-on at Turn 14.

Formula 2 champion Luciano Bacheta was sixth, three places up on Euronova Racing's early season championship leader Kimiya Sato.

Incidents were relatively sparse; Monza podium finisher Vittorio Ghirelli suffered minor damage to his Super Nova car, but was able to return to the pits, while Yoshitaka Kuroda's machine was brought back to the paddock by recovery truck at the conclusion of the session.

In a revised timetable, qualifying is scheduled to take place at 13.00 local time, with today's first race at 16.50.

Pos Driver                  Team           Time       Gap      Laps
 1. Narain Karthikeyan      Zele           1m29.271s            23
 2. Sergio Campana          Ibiza          1m29.940s  + 0.669s  17
 3. Meindert van Buuren     Manor MP       1m30.103s  + 0.832s  25
 4. Robert Visoiu           Ghinzani       1m30.158s  + 0.887s  24
 5. Riccardo Agostini       Manor MP       1m30.165s  + 0.894s  19
 6. Luciano Bacheta         Zele           1m30.207s  + 0.936s  21
 7. Daniel de Jong          Manor MP       1m30.308s  + 1.037s  19
 8. Maxim Snegirev          Virtuosi UK    1m30.702s  + 1.431s  22
 9. Kimiya Sato             Euronova       1m30.760s  + 1.489s  16
10. G.Cipriani              Ibiza          1m30.779s  + 1.508s  22
11. Antonio Spavone         Supernova      1m30.984s  + 1.713s  21
12. Vittorio Ghirelli       Supernova      1m31.134s  + 1.863s  21
13. Andrea Roda             Virtuosi UK    1m31.425s  + 2.154s  22
14. Michele La Rosa         MLR 71         1m33.115s  + 3.844s  21
15. Yoshitaka Kuroda        Euronova       1m33.241s  + 3.970s  8

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