Huertas leads final British F3 test

The Colombian Raikkonen Robertson racer topped the timesheets for the first time since graduating to F3 from Formula BMW Europe.

He went quickest in both sessions and lapped the International circuit in a best time of 1m14.753s during the afternoon, a full tenth of a second faster than Carlin driver Max Chilton, who set his best time in the morning. Huertas's team-mate Daisuke Nakajima propped up a top 10 covered by 0.521 seconds.

The lap times were half a second slower than those set the previous day, when T-Sport driver Adriano Buzaid went quickest on his first run with the new 2009 Volkswagen engine.

Reflecting on his performance, Huertas said: "We had a good day. We knew we had a few problems to solve following the short test session we did yesterday (Tuesday) and I'm pleased that we've made progress.

"I improved on a couple of corners and the team made some steps forward with the car.

"I'm pleased that we were fastest in both the morning and afternoon session as that shows that we had genuine pace.

"It's good to finish testing on a high note with the first race of the season only a week or so away, although I know we still need to keep improving. I really can't wait for the racing to get underway."

Double R Team Principal Anthony Hieatt added: "The team did a good job at Silverstone and Carlos is now showing the pace that we've known he was capable of.

"Daisuke also made progress, so I think from a team perspective we're in good shape for [the first round at] Oulton Park."

Meanwhile, Fortec driver Riki Christodoulou returned to Britain for the test, after two days of Renault World Series testing with Comtec at Barcelona, and set the ninth fastest time.

                    
Pos  Driver              Team            Car  Time
 1.  Carlos Huertas      Double R        D/M  1m14.753s
 2.  Max Chilton         Carlin          D/V  1m14.854s
 3.  Henry Arundel       Carlin          D/V  1m14.965s
 4.  Adriano Buzaid      T-Sport         D/V  1m14.969s
 5.  Wayne Boyd          T-Sport         D/V  1m14.996s
 6.  Daniel Ricciardo    Carlin          D/V  1m15.051s
 7.  Oliver Oakes        Carlin          D/V  1m15.101s
 8.  Nick Tandy          JTR             M/M  1m15.132s
 9.  Riki Christodoulou  Fortec          D/M  1m15.231s
10.  Daisuke Nakajima    Double R        D/M  1m15.274s
11.  Hywel Lloyd         CF Racing       D/H  1m15.384s
12.  Victor Garcia       Fortec          D/M  1m15.392s
13.  Walter Grubmuller   Hitech          D/M  1m15.489s
14.  Stephane Richelmi   Barazi Epsilon  D/M  1m15.638s
15.  Gabriel Dias        T-Sport         D/H  1m15.857s
16.  Jay Bridger         West-Tec        M/H  1m16.083s
17.  Daniel McKenzie     Fortec          D/H  1m16.172s
18.  Victor Correa       Litespeed       S/H  1m16.727s
19.  Max Snegirev        West-Tec        D/H  1m17.263s