Leimer still on top in GP2 testing

The Swiss driver is running with champion team Rapax for all four days of testing this week, and followed up his time-topping Wednesday performance by leading both the Saturday sessions as well.

Michael Herck was Leimer's closest challenger, 0.116 seconds behind in the afternoon, as he continues to drive for family team DPR in its final week before departing from GP2 to make way for the new-for-2011 entrants. Herck will stay in the series with Coloni next year.

Having driven for Addax earlier in the week, 2010 Super Nova driver Josef Kral moved across to Arden today and was second in the morning.

Also trying out a variety of cars during the test is Monza race-winner Sam Bird. Fresh from try-outs with Ocean and DAMS, Bird was with iSport today and took third place. He will drive for Super Nova tomorrow.

Super Nova had 2010 iSport driver and McLaren Formula 1 tester Oliver Turvey in its car alongside its former GP2 Asia driver Jake Rosenzweig today. Turvey moves across to Arden for Sunday.

Romain Grosjean joined the test to give DAMS a benchmark for the other drivers it is evaluating during the week. The sometime Renault F1 driver was fourth-fastest.

Fellow F1 man Karun Chandhok was also in action, returning to old team Ocean and taking 13th. Sunday's sessions will see him driving for Coloni.

Former McLaren AUTOSPORT BRDC Award winner Alexander Sims had his first taste of GP2 with his Formula 3 Euro Series team ART, and will drive for Racing Engineering on Sunday. He was 20th.

GP3 men Adrian Quaife-Hobbs and Rio Haryanto made their GP2 debuts today with Coloni and iSport respectively, while fellow GP3 driver Alexander Rossi - who contested GP2 Asia last winter - returned with Arden.

Formula 2 runner-up Jolyon Palmer's GP2 auditions continued with a day at Addax, before he completes the test with ART tomorrow.

Rapax also brought Davide Rigon - a double Superleague Formula champion for Beijing Gouan and Anderlecht - back to GP2 today, while after sampling GP2 with Coloni in the final races, Brendon Hartley had a test with Racing Engineering.

Morning session:

Pos  Driver               Team                Time       Gap
 1.  Fabio Leimer         Rapax               1m47.856s
 2.  Josef Kral           Arden               1m47.882s  + 0.026s
 3.  Michael Herck        DPR                 1m47.905s  + 0.049s
 4.  Sam Bird             iSport              1m48.053s  + 0.197s
 5.  Marcus Ericsson      Addax               1m48.113s  + 0.257s
 6.  Roberto Merhi        Racing Engineering  1m48.279s  + 0.423s
 7.  Brendon Hartley      Racing Engineering  1m48.372s  + 0.516s
 8.  Esteban Gutierrez    ART                 1m48.517s  + 0.661s
 9.  Romain Grosjean      DAMS                1m48.552s  + 0.696s
10.  Dani Clos            Trident             1m48.634s  + 0.778s
11.  Oliver Turvey        Super Nova          1m48.645s  + 0.789s
12.  Jolyon Palmer        Addax               1m48.647s  + 0.791s
13.  Alexander Rossi      Arden               1m48.703s  + 0.847s
14.  Karun Chandhok       Ocean               1m48.772s  + 0.916s
15.  Rodolfo Gonzalez     Ocean               1m48.819s  + 0.963s
16.  Kevin Ceccon         DPR                 1m48.874s  + 1.018s
17.  Jake Rosenzweig      Super Nova          1m49.085s  + 1.229s
18.  Julian Leal          Trident             1m49.439s  + 1.583s
19.  Davide Rigon         Rapax               1m49.476s  + 1.620s
20.  Nathanael Berthon    DAMS                1m49.480s  + 1.624s
21.  Adrian Quaife-Hobbs  Coloni              1m49.488s  + 1.632s
22.  Alexander Sims       ART                 1m49.605s  + 1.749s
23.  Armaan Ebrahim       Coloni              1m49.731s  + 1.875s
24.  Rio Haryanto         iSport              1m50.067s  + 2.211s

Afternoon session:

Pos  Driver               Team                Time       Gap
 1.  Fabio Leimer         Rapax               1m47.165s
 2.  Michael Herck        DPR                 1m47.281s  + 0.116s
 3.  Sam Bird             iSport              1m47.490s  + 0.325s
 4.  Romain Grosjean      DAMS                1m47.558s  + 0.393s
 5.  Dani Clos            Trident             1m47.567s  + 0.402s
 6.  Marcus Ericsson      Addax               1m47.775s  + 0.610s
 7.  Roberto Merhi        Racing Engineering  1m47.869s  + 0.704s
 8.  Oliver Turvey        Super Nova          1m47.960s  + 0.795s
 9.  Davide Rigon         Rapax               1m48.008s  + 0.843s
10.  Jolyon Palmer        Addax               1m48.185s  + 1.020s
11.  Adrian Quaife-Hobbs  Coloni              1m48.228s  + 1.063s
12.  Josef Kral           Arden               1m48.303s  + 1.138s
13.  Karun Chandhok       Ocean               1m48.372s  + 1.207s
14.  Alexander Rossi      Arden               1m48.425s  + 1.260s
15.  Julian Leal          Trident             1m48.499s  + 1.334s
16.  Brendon Hartley      Racing Engineering  1m48.540s  + 1.375s
17.  Nathanael Berthon    DAMS                1m48.575s  + 1.410s
18.  Rodolfo Gonzalez     Ocean               1m48.738s  + 1.573s
19.  Armaan Ebrahim       Coloni              1m48.857s  + 1.692s
20.  Alexander Sims       ART                 1m48.889s  + 1.724s
21.  Jake Rosenzweig      Super Nova          1m49.139s  + 1.974s
22.  Kevin Ceccon         DPR                 1m49.549s  + 2.384s
23.  Rio Haryanto         iSport              1m49.715s  + 2.550s
24.  Esteban Gutierrez    ART                 1m50.670s  + 3.505s