Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Mitch Evans sets pace in GP3's first Monaco practice session

Mitch Evans topped free practice on the debut appearance of the GP3 series at Monaco, setting a stunning pace in what proved to be the dying seconds of the session

The MW Arden driver looked set to miss out on top spot to Carlin's Antonio Felix da Costa after heading the timesheets during the middle stages of the 40-minute session.

But Evans repeatedly set fastest times in the middle sector, eventually stringing together a lap which was a remarkable seven-tenths of a second better than the Portuguese. He ended up setting fastest times overall in both the second and third sectors, showing that his place on top of the times was no fluke.

Evans set his time with three minutes to go just before red flags brought proceedings to a premature end when Carlin driver Will Buller spun entering Casino Square. Buller kept the car out of the barriers, but didn't have enough space to recover and had to rely on the marshals to recover him.

With Evans the only driver to break the 1m29s barrier, da Costa held onto second place ahead of Lotus driver Conor Daly. His team-mate Aaro Vainio, quickest overall in sector one, was fourth fastest.

Sometime GP2 driver Kevin Ceccon (Ocean) ended up fifth, just ahead of Alex Brundle (Carlin), the son of ex-grand prix driver Martin Brundle.

Despite the fact that the vast majority of the 26-car field were Monaco rookies, there were few incidents other than Buller's.

Manor Racing driver Dmitry Suranovich spun at Rascasse with five minutes to go, triggering a yellow flag that forced several drivers to abandon their laps, but beyond that it was an impressively clean session.


Pos  Driver                  Team       Time       Gap
 1.  Mitch Evans             MW Arden   1m28.492s
 2.  Antonio Felix da Costa  Carlin     1m29.207s  + 0.715s
 3.  Conor Daly              Lotus      1m29.289s  + 0.797s
 4.  Aaro Vainio             Lotus      1m29.442s  + 0.950s
 5.  Kevin Ceccon            Ocean      1m29.648s  + 1.156s
 6.  Alex Brundle            Carlin     1m29.730s  + 1.238s
 7.  David Fumanelli         MW Arden   1m29.876s  + 1.384s
 8.  Daniel Abt              Lotus      1m29.953s  + 1.461s
 9.  Matias Laine            MW Arden   1m29.991s  + 1.499s
10.  Marlon Stockinger       Status     1m29.994s  + 1.502s
11.  Patric Niederhauser     Jenzer     1m30.267s  + 1.775s
12.  Tio Ellinas             Manor      1m30.394s  + 1.902s
13.  Tamas Pal Kiss          Atech CRS  1m30.424s  + 1.932s
14.  William Buller          Carlin     1m30.534s  + 2.042s
15.  Robert Visoiu           Jenzer     1m30.581s  + 2.089s
16.  Kotaro Sakurai          Status     1m30.927s  + 2.435s
17.  Alice Powell            Status     1m31.429s  + 2.937s
18.  Dmitry Suranovich       Manor      1m31.460s  + 2.968s
19.  Jakub Klasterka         Jenzer     1m31.524s  + 3.032s
20.  Antonio Spavone         Trident    1m32.074s  + 3.582s
21.  Vicky Piria             Trident    1m32.265s  + 3.773s
22.  Robert Cregan           Ocean      1m32.285s  + 3.793s
23.  John Wartique           Atech CRS  1m32.405s  + 3.913s
24.  Ethan Ringel            Atech CRS  1m32.460s  + 3.968s
25.  Fabiano Machado         Manor      1m32.886s  + 4.394s
26.  Carmen Jorda            Ocean      1m34.583s  + 6.091s

Be part of the Autosport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Alex Lynn goes fastest in Rockingham F3 test
Next article Aaro Vainio beats Kevin Ceccon to pole for GP3's Monaco debut

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe