Melker leads Euro F3 testing
Nigel Melker became the third man to go quickest in as many official Formula 3 Euro Series pre-season tests this month as he paced the field at Barcelona on Monday
The 20-year-old Dutchman, who is undertaking dual F3 and GP3 campaigns with the squad this year, completed 59 laps of the Spanish Grand Prix venue and set his benchmark time of 1m38.251s midway through the morning session.
Last year's championship runner-up Marco Wittmann had his most competitive outing of pre-season, lapping just 0.034s slower than Melker to go second quickest.
Kimiya Sato was third quickest for Motopark while afternoon pacesetter Roberto Merhi put his Prema Dallara fourth overall, significantly making it two Mercedes and two Volkswagen-powered cars inside the top four places.
Laurens Vanthoor (Signature) and Daniel Juncadella (Prema) completed the top six, ahead of Kuba Giermaziak, who continued to gain F3 experience for the new Star Racing squad. Signature driver Daniel Abt was the slowest of the 12 runners, just over 1.1s off the pace.
Pos Driver Team/Car Time Gap 1. Nigel Melker Mucke Dallara-Mercedes 1m38.251s 2. Marco Wittmann Signature Dallara-VW 1m38.285s + 0.034s 3. Kimiya Sato Motopark Dallara-VW 1m38.481s + 0.230s 4. Roberto Merhi Prema Dallara-Mercedes 1m38.580s + 0.329s 5. Laurens Vanthoor Signature Dallara-VW 1m38.819s + 0.568s 6. Daniel Juncadella Prema Dallara-Mercedes 1m38.862s + 0.611s 7. Kuba Giermaziak Star Dallara-VW 1m38.903s + 0.652s 8. Gianmarco Raimondo Motopark Dallara-VW 1m38.963s + 0.712s 9. Felix Rosenqvist Mucke Dallara-Mercedes 1m38.986s + 0.735s 10. Jimmy Eriksson Motopark Dallara-VW 1m39.111s + 0.860s 11. Carlos Munoz Signature Dallara-VW 1m39.298s + 1.047s 12. Daniel Abt Signature Dallara-VW 1m39.410s + 1.159s
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