Turvey leads Bucharest practice day

The Briton has won three of the last four races and comes into this weekend's event in Romania with a nine-point championship lead. He was fifth quickest in the morning session before beating his Carlin Motorsport teammate Brendon Hartley to the top spot this afternoon.

"It's my first time on a street circuit so I'm really pleased to finish the day quickest," said Turvey, "It's great fun, you get really close to the walls, and I think I managed to find the limit in the second session.

"I think there's a little more to come, we'll look to see if we can make any improvements before qualifying tomorrow, but it's a good start to the weekend."

The street circuit's grip improved dramatically throughout the day and the quickest lap this afternoon was three and a half seconds faster than the morning's best effort.

It was Double R's Atte Mustonen the did the best lap of the morning, but he pushed too hard and crashed into the wall on his very next lap.

The four title contenders filled the next four places, with Carlin pair Hartley and Jaime Alguersuari second and third, and Sergio Perez just pipping Turvey to fourth.

But it was the afternoon session that gave the best representation of the pace that can be expected in qualifying tomorrow, and Turvey and Hartley were six tenths of a second clear of the field at the front.

Ericsson was third after he too crashed in the morning session, with Alguersuari fourth. Perez was only ninth this time, behind John Martin, Max Chilton, Mustonen, and Walter Grubmuller.

T-Sport's Steven Guerrero was the quickest National Class runner in each session and was a full eight tenths of a second clear of his nearest class rival by the end of the day.

Pos Driver               Team          Car   Time         Gap
 1. Oliver Turvey        Carlin        D/M   1:13.537
 2. Brendon Hartley      Carlin        D/M   1:13.761  +0.224
 3. Marcus Ericsson      Fortec        D/M   1:14.402  +0.865
 4. Jaime Alguersuari    Carlin        D/M   1:14.407  +0.870
 5. John Martin          Double R      D/M   1:14.585  +1.048
 6. Max Chilton          Hitech        D/M   1:14.679  +1.142
 7. Atte Mustonen        Double R      D/M   1:14.728  +1.191
 8. Walter Grubmuller    Hitech        D/M   1:14.847  +1.310
 9. Sergio Perez         T-Sport       D/H   1:14.973  +1.436
10. Sam Abay             Carlin        D/M   1:15.280  +1.743
11. Steven Guerrero      T-Sport (N)   D/H   1:15.797  +2.260
12. Henry Arundel        Double R      D/M   1:16.254  +2.717
13. Stefan Wilson        Fluid (N)     D/H   1:16.582  +3.045
14. Hywel Lloyd          CF (N)        D/H   1:16.635  +3.098
15. Oliver Oakes         Eurotek       D/M   1:16.658  +3.121
16. Jay Bridger          Fluid (N)     D/H   1:16.660  +3.123
17. Philip Major         Fortec        D/M   1:16.849  +3.312
18. Salman Al-Khalifa    T-Sport (N)   D/H   1:17.295  +3.758
19. Kristjan Einar       Carlin (N)    D/H   1:18.094  +4.557