Ricciardo fastest in British F3 testing

The Australian Carlin driver's best lap of 1m11.038s, set in the afternoon, put him over four tenths of a second clear of the rest of the field and 1.5 seconds below the official lap record.

Ricciardo repeatedly lapped inside the 1m11.5s bracket - posting six such times during the test. His performance returned his squad to the head of the pack for the first time since it helped Spaniard Jaime Alguesari become the youngest ever British F3 champion last season.

Bedford-based Nick Tandy went second fastest at his home circuit, powering his JTR Mygale-Mercedes to a 1m11.458s best, with Fortec's Riki Christodoulou third quickest, just eight-thousandths behind.

Reigning British Formula Ford champion Wayne Boyd enjoyed his best official testing performance to date by posting the fourth fastest time in his T-Sport Dallara Volkswagen. Less than a second covered the top 11 drivers at the test.

Fortec's Daniel McKenzie ran quickest of the three national class drivers and set the 15th fastest time overall.

Reigning National Class champion Jay Bridger gave his new international class Mygale-Mugen Honda, prepared by Team West-Tec and upgraded with a 2009 aero package, a debut airing at Rockingham.

Bridger propped up the timesheets and struggled to string laps together due to minor mechanical problems caused by the late completion of the car earlier that morning.

Pos  Driver              Team       Car                    Time
 1.  Daniel Ricciardo    Carlin     Dallara-Volkswagen     1m11.038s
 2.  Nick Tandy          JTR        Mygale-Mercedes        1m11.458s
 3.  Riki Christodoulou  Fortec     Dallara-Mercedes       1m11.466s
 4.  Wayne Boyd          T-Sport    Dallara-Volkswagen     1m11.549s
 5.  Carlos Huertas      Double R   Dallara-Mercedes       1m11.556s
 6.  Max Chilton         Carlin     Dallara-Volkswagen     1m11.645s
 7.  Victor Garcia       Fortec     Dallara-Mercedes       1m11.698s
 8.  Daisuke Nakajima    Double R   Dallara-Mercedes       1m11.784s
 9.  Henry Arundel       Carlin     Dallara-Volkswagen     1m11.802s
10.  Walter Grubmüller   Hitech     Dallara-Mercedes       1m11.803s
11.  Adriano Buzaid      T-Sport    Dallara-Volkswagen     1m11.904s
12.  Oliver Oakes        Carlin     Dallara-Volkswagen     1m12.159s
13.  Stephane Richelmi   Barazi     Dallara-Mercedes       1m12.423s
14.  Hywel Lloyd         CF         Dallara-Mugen Honda    1m12.709s
15.  Daniel McKenzie     Fortec     Dallara-Mugen Honda    1m13.686s
16.  Max Snegirev        West-Tec   Dallara-Mugen Honda    1m13.762s
17.  Victor Correa       Litespeed  Litespeed-Mugen Honda  1m14.898s
18.  Jay Bridger         West-Tec   Mygale-Mugen Honda     1m15.373s