Bird fastest in opening GP2 practice
GP2 Series rookies have taken the early bragging rights in the first official outing of the new season, with ART's Sam Bird edging out Arden's Charles Pic to top today's practice session in Barcelona
Bird's best time of 1m28.511s put him 0.185s clear of Pic, with Barwa Addax's Sergio Perez ending the morning as the quickest of the more experienced drivers, the Mexican ending up a further 0.1s behind in third place.
The session passed largely without incident, which allowed virtually all of the field to get some solid running ahead of qualifying this afternoon. The only exception was DAMS driver Jerome d'Ambrosio, whose car stopped after the Belgian had completed just two laps.
Virgin Racing test driver Luiz Razia spun in his Rapax entry with five minutes left on the clock but was able to continue and finished the session in 15th, while Coloni's Alberto Valerio had his morning cut slightly short when he beached his car with a couple of minutes remaining.
Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Sam Bird ART Grand Prix 1:28.511 16 2. Charles Pic Arden International 1:28.696 14 3. Sergio Perez Barwa Addax Team 1:28.795 15 4. Jules Bianchi ART Grand Prix 1:28.846 14 5. Oliver Turvey iSport International 1:28.915 14 6. Dani Clos Racing Engineering 1:29.078 14 7. Davide Valsecchi iSport International 1:29.104 14 8. Giacomo Ricci DPR 1:29.163 14 9. Josef Kral Super Nova Racing 1:29.321 12 10. Ho-Pin Tung DAMS 1:29.360 17 11. Christian Vietoris Racing Engineering 1:29.508 15 12. Michael Herck DPR 1:29.701 15 13. Fabio Leimer Ocean Racing Technology 1:29.760 16 14. Alberto Valerio Scuderia Coloni 1:29.764 13 15. Luiz Razia Rapax 1:29.857 11 16. Marcus Ericsson Super Nova Racing 1:29.862 16 17. Giedo van der Garde Barwa Addax Team 1:29.932 14 18. Adrian Zaugg Trident Racing 1:29.967 15 19. Pastor Maldonado Rapax 1:29.998 15 20. Johnny Cecotto Trident Racing 1:30.049 16 21. Max Chilton Ocean Racing Technology 1:30.226 16 22. Rodolfo Gonzalez Arden International 1:30.852 14 23. Vladimir Arabadzhiev Scuderia Coloni 1:31.302 15 24. Jerome d'Ambrosio DAMS 1:33.820 2
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