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Donington Park Auto GP: Narain Karthikeyan takes control in practice

Auto GP's in-form man Narain Karthikeyan set the pace during Saturday's opening free practice session at Donington Park

The former grand prix driver held a healthy advantage throughout the 45 minute session, and his fastest time of 1m16.796s edged out championship challenger Sergio Campana by 0.598 seconds.

Karthikeyan is aiming for his fourth consecutive pole position in this afternoon's qualifying session, but has not competed at Donington Park since his tenure in British Formula 3 in the 1990s.

GP3 race winner Robert Visoiu held second spot until being demoted by Campana in the final minute of the session.

Visoiu was unable to defend his position after suffering an off and beaching his Ghinzani Motorsport entry at Coppice with 10 minutes remaining.

The Romanian's team-mate Kevin Giovesi took fourth ahead of Hungarian Tamas Pal Kiss, who enjoys relatively recent circuit knowledge from a campaign in British Formula Renault in 2010.

All the weekend's action as it happens with AUTOSPORT Race Centre Live

Championship leader Kimiya Sato, defending a 13-point advantage over Campana entering this penultimate round of the series, languished among the lower reaches of the classification for much of the session before salvaging sixth position, albeit with a 0.5s deficit to his title rival.

Auto GP rookie Meindert van Buuren's start to the weekend was compromised by a driveshaft failure that cost the Dutchman a quarter of an hour of track time. He ended the morning in ninth.

The session was interrupted by a full-course yellow when Roberto La Rocca suffered a sensor failure failure on his out-lap.

The Venezuelan's Comtec by Virtuosi car was recovered to the pits during a red flag period but La Rocca was unable to resume.

The stoppage was caused when Max Snegirev crashed at the chicane, damaging the rear suspension of his Virtuosi car and removing its rear wing.

Gentleman driver Michele Rosa's morning meanwhile was disrupted by gear selection gremlins on his MLR71 machine.

Pos Driver                 Team                 Time       Gap     Laps
 1. Narain Karthikeyan     Super Nova           1m16.796s            24
 2. Sergio Campana         Ibiza Racing         1m17.394s  +0.598s   26
 3. Robert Visoiu          Ghinzani             1m17.675s  +0.879s   24
 4. Kevin Giovesi          Ghinzani             1m17.716s  +0.920s   18
 5. Tamas Pal Kiss         Ibiza Racing         1m17.721s  +0.925s   23
 6. Kimiya Sato            Euronova             1m17.878s  +1.082s   14
 7. Daniel de Jong         Manor MP             1m18.339s  +1.543s   25
 8. Yoshitaka Kuroda       Euronova             1m18.676s  +1.880s   23
 9. Meindert van Buuren    Manor MP             1m18.695s  +1.899s   27
10. Andrea Roda            Virtuosi UK          1m18.810s  +2.014s   27
11. Vittorio Ghirelli      Super Nova           1m19.515s  +2.719s   28
12. Max Snegirev           Virtuosi UK          1m20.469s  +3.673s   25
13. Michele La Rosa        MLR 71               1m41.449s  +24.653s  18
14. Roberto La Rocca       Comtec/Virtuosi      -                     1

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