Van der Zande tops first GP3 session

The Mucke driver bumped ART's Esteban Gutierrez from the top of the timesheets 10 minutes into the session and was never troubled thereafter, finishing with a best time of 1m38.664s. His Mucke team-mate Nigel Melker was second, 0.203s in arrears, ahead of Gutierrez and Status driver Robert Wickens, who made a late surge up to fourth.

Addax's Mirko Bortolotti was among the early pace-setters, but the Italian earned the unfortunate distinction of being the first driver to crash a GP3 car on a race weekend when he spun and tagged the barriers with 10 minutes remaining.

His time was still good enough to keep him in seventh behind Manor duo James Jakes and Adrian Quaife-Hobbs.


Pos  Driver                 Team           Time     Laps
 1.  Renger van der Zande   Mucke          1:38.664   14
 2.  Nigel Melker           Mucke          1:38.867   15
 3.  Esteban Gutierrez      ART            1:38.918   14
 4.  Robert Wickens         Status         1:38.974   13
 5.  James Jakes            Manor          1:39.044   11
 6.  Adrian Quaife-Hobbs    Manor          1:39.106   15
 7.  Mirko Bortolotti       Addax          1:39.181    5
 8.  Pedro Sanchez Lopez    Addax          1:39.195   14
 9.  Alexander Rossi        ART            1:39.274   13
10.  Dean Smith             Carlin         1:39.297   15
11.  Michael Christensen    MW Arden       1:39.412   12
12.  Felipe Guimaraes       Addax          1:39.431   15
13.  Simon Trummer          Jenzer         1:39.445   15
14.  Tobias Hegewald        Mucke          1:39.477   16
15.  Daniel Morad           Status         1:39.483   14
16.  Jean-Eric Vergne       Tech 1         1:39.561   13
17.  Miki Monras            MW Arden       1:39.583   14
18.  Nigel Muller           Jenzer         1:39.601   16
19.  Rio Haryanto           Manor          1:39.727   13
20.  Pal Varhaug            Jenzer         1:39.788   14
21.  Josef Newgarden        Carlin         1:40.063   10
22.  Doru Sechelariu        Tech 1         1:40.176   13
23.  Vittorio Ghirelli      Atech          1:40.176   16
24.  Leonardo Cordeiro      MW Arden       1:40.204   15
25.  Lucas Foresti          Carlin         1:40.440   15
26.  Pedro Nunes            ART            1:40.550   11
27.  Ivan Lukashevich       Status         1:40.754   14
28.  Patrick Reiterer       Atech          1:41.351   12
29.  Daniel Juncadella      Tech 1         1:41.665   11
30.  Oliver Oakes           Atech          no time