Calado fastest in Thruxton test

The Racing Steps Foundation-backed Carlin driver used a tow from a rival car (which he reckoned to be worth 10mph) to set a 1m06.840s best on old tyres in the drier first of the day's two 90-minute sessions, edging out team-mate Lucas Foresti by 0.049 seconds.

Persistent rain affected the second session, but Calado - who has raced at the high-speed Hampshire venue twice before in Formula Renault - took advantage of a reasonably dry window late on to set a 1m07.426s lap, which left him 0.058s clear of team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne.

"The car seems to be quite good," Calado told AUTOSPORT. "I'm quite happy with the straightline speed, which has been a problem for us.

"We need to make a few tweaks to get the car to turn in a bit better in the first sector, but we should be in the high 5s to low 6s tomorrow - we'll see."

Runaway championship leader Vergne set the fourth fastest time overall, just over a tenth adrift of Raikkonen Robertson Racing's Carlos Huertas. Both of the Colombian's team-mates went off in the first session: Felipe Nasr clipped the exit kerb at the final chicane, which spat him backwards into the opposing wall, while Daisuke Nakajima ran off the road at Goodwood.

Fortec's Oli Webb experimented with running no rear wing on his Dallara-Mercedes and set fifth fastest time, before reverting to a more conventional arrangement. Hitech's Will Buller tried a similar thing with his Dallara-Volkswagen, but had less joy and wound up 12th quickest.

Carlin's Rupert Svendsen-Cook rounded out the top six, just four thousandths of a second clear of Litespeed's Jay Bridger. Carlin's Adriano Buzaid, Hitech's Gabriel Dias and Fortec's Daniel McKenzie rounded out the top 10, as less than 1.5s covered the fastest 16 drivers.

Pos Driver                  Team            Car          Time
 1. James Calado            Carlin          D/V     1m06.840s
 2. Lucas Foresti           Carlin          D/V     1m06.889s
 3. Carlos Huertas          Raikkonen       D/M     1m06.939s
 4. Jean-Eric Vergne        Carlin          D/V     1m07.067s
 5. Oli Webb                Fortec          D/M     1m07.087s
 6. Rupert Svendsen-Cook    Carlin          D/V     1m07.103s
 7. Jay Bridger             Litespeed       D/M     1m07.107s
 8. Adriano Buzaid          Carlin          D/V     1m07.272s
 9. Gabriel Dias            Hitech          D/V     1m07.327s
10. Daniel McKenzie         Fortec          D/M     1m07.550s
11. Jazeman Jaafar          Carlin          D/V     1m07.586s
12. Will Buller             Hitech          D/V     1m07.695s
13. Alex Brundle            T-Sport         D/V     1m07.695s
14. Hywel Lloyd             CF/Manor        D/M     1m07.867s
15. Daisuke Nakajima        Raikkonen       D/M     1m08.072s
16. Menasheh Idafar         T-Sport         D/H     1m08.195s
17. Felipe Nasr             Raikkonen       D/M     1m08.365s
18. Max Snegirev            Fortec          D/M     1m08.408s
19. James Cole              T-Sport         D/H     1m08.668s
20. Adderley Fong           Sino Vision     D/M     1m10.106s