Euro F3 Monza: Felix Rosenqvist tops practice for Mucke Motorsport
Felix Rosenqvist topped free practice for the opening round of the Formula 3 European Championship at Monza on Friday
After languishing down the order in pre-season testing, The Swede was fifth in his Mucke Motorsport Dallara-Mercedes in the opening 40-minute session.
He then went fastest in the second - just 0.007 seconds ahead of Raffaele Marciello's Prema Powerteam Dallara-Mercedes.
The Mucke team confirmed that it had been concentrating on chasing development in testing, especially with lead drivers Rosenqvist and Pascal Wehrlein. But Rosenqvist, last year's Macau Grand Prix runner-up, was nevertheless relieved to find the pace.
"I wasn't really happy in testing because of balance problems," he said.
"But we worked really hard to solve everything. We did quite a lot of changes and it's worked out quite well. Now it seems that we can at least fight in the top five."
Marciello, who was fastest in the first session, beat Prema team-mate Alex Lynn into second, with Dennis van de Laar the surprise package, fourth in his Van Amersfoort Racing Dallara-Volkswagen.
The two sessions ran without major incident, although there was a red flag that prematurely terminated the first.
This was caused when Jordan King - second fastest in the opening period - suffered a fuel pick-up problem on his Carlin Dallara-VW and ground to a halt just before the pit entrance.
Combined practice times: Pos Driver Team/Car Time Gap 1. Felix Rosenqvist Mucke Dallara-Merc 1m45.243s 2. Raffaele Marciello Prema Dallara-Merc 1m45.250s + 0.007s 3. Alex Lynn Prema Dallara-Merc 1m45.360s + 0.117s 4. Dennis van de Laar Van Amersfoort Dallara-VW 1m45.380s + 0.137s 5. Sven Muller Ma-con Dallara-VW 1m45.441s + 0.198s 6. Eddie Cheever Prema Dallara-Merc 1m45.483s + 0.240s 7. Pascal Wehrlein Mucke Dallara-Merc 1m45.492s + 0.249s 8. Felix Serralles Fortec Dallara-Merc 1m45.517s + 0.274s 9. Tom Blomqvist EuroIntern'l Dallara-Merc 1m45.576s + 0.333s 10. Will Buller T-Sport Dallara-Nissan 1m45.583s + 0.340s 11. Lucas Auer Prema Dallara-Merc 1m45.597s + 0.354s 12. Nicholas Latifi Carlin Dallara-VW 1m45.651s + 0.408s 13. Jordan King Carlin Dallara-VW 1m45.713s + 0.470s 14. Jann Mardenborough Carlin Dallara-VW 1m45.868s + 0.625s 15. Harry Tincknell Carlin Dallara-VW 1m45.878s + 0.635s 16. Pipo Derani Fortec Dallara-Merc 1m45.894s + 0.651s 17. Antonio Giovinazzi Double R Dallara-Merc 1m45.930s + 0.687s 18. Josh Hill Fortec Dallara-Merc 1m46.051s + 0.808s 19. Mitchell Gilbert Mucke Dallara-Merc 1m46.071s + 0.828s 20. Lucas Wolf URD Dallara-Merc 1m46.326s + 1.083s 21. Spike Goddard T-Sport Dallara-Nissan 1m46.388s + 1.145s 22. Mans Grenhagen Van Amersfoort Dallara-VW 1m46.425s + 1.182s 23. Roy Nissany Mucke Dallara-Merc 1m46.488s + 1.245s 24. Andre Rudersdorf Ma-con Dallara-VW 1m46.545s + 1.302s 25. Sean Gelael Double R Dallara-Merc 1m47.086s + 1.843s 26. Gary Thompson Ferraris Dallara-Merc 1m47.499s + 2.256s 27. Sandro Zeller Zeller Dallara-Merc 1m47.729s + 2.486s 28. Tatiana Calderon Double R Dallara-Merc 1m47.754s + 2.511s 29. Dmitry Suranovich Fortec Dallara-Merc 1m48.074s + 2.831s 30. Michela Cerruti Ferraris Dallara-Merc 1m49.071s + 3.828s
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