Guenther tops FE Valencia test after setting pace on tight final day

The BMW Andretti driver clocked a late 1m11.760s flying lap at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo to keep Sergio Sette Camara at bay by just 0.036s on an impressive day for Dragon Penske Autosport.

That meant for the second season in succession, Guenther ended the running quickest - his time this year was 3.2s quicker than in 2019 folllowing the removal of the main straight chicane.

In the warmest conditions of the three-day test, the top nine drivers all broke under the 1m12s barrier as teams switched to faster qualifying lap simulation runs.

However, this led to no fewer than seven drivers having to serve a 15-minute penalty in the pits as the new track limits imposed at Turns 1, 6 and 10 were repeatedly broken.

Behind Sette Camara, one such driver to be cautioned, his team-mate Nico Muller ran third fastest for Dragon, although he is yet to be confirmed at the team for the 2020-21 season.

Muller was just 0.050s off the pace in the 2019-20 car, with the American squad set to follow the lead of DS Techeetah and Nissan e.dams by introducing a new package for the Rome E-Prix in April.

For much of the single six-hour session reigning champion Antonio Felix da Costa had led the field with his 1m11.815s benchmark, but no late improvements meant he dropped back to fourth.

In fifth place was Jaguar Racing's Mitch Evans, the Kiwi having been da Costa's nearest title rival throughout the early part of last season before the campaigned resumed for six races in Berlin.

Behind Evans, another casualty of the 15-minute reprimand, Porsche racer Pascal Wehrlein headed Oliver Rowland and the second DS Techeetah of Jean-Eric Vergne.

A strong effort from NIO 333 pilot Oliver Turvey guided the experienced Briton to ninth ahead of an impressive run from Venturi Racing recruit Norman Nato, set for his rookie FE season.

Fellow rookie Jake Dennis was 11th for BMW Andretti, still only 0.287s adrift of the top.

Mercedes driver Stoffel Vandoorne, widely expected to replace Lewis Hamilton for this weekend's Sakhir Grand Prix following the seven-time champion's positive COVID-19 test, ranked 18th.

His team-mate Nyck de Vries ranked 21st as Audi driver Lucas di Grassi brought up the rear in 24th and last, but was only 0.761s away from Guenther.

Test times

Pos	Driver	Team	Car	Gap	Laps
1	Maximilian Guenther	BMW	BMW	1m11.760s	80
2	Sergio Sette Camara	Dragon	Penske	0.036s	55
3	Nico Muller	Dragon	Penske	0.050s	72
4	Antonio Felix da Costa	DS Techeetah	DS	0.055s	81
5	Mitch Evans	Jaguar	Jaguar	0.120s	76
6	Pascal Wehrlein	Porsche	Porsche	0.148s	68
7	Oliver Rowland	Nissan e.Dams	Nissan	0.183s	61
8	Jean-Eric Vergne	DS Techeetah	DS	0.218s	78
9	Oliver Turvey	NIO	NIO	0.236s	92
10	Norman Nato	Venturi	Mercedes	0.242s	84
11	Jake Dennis	BMW	BMW	0.287s	76
12	Edoardo Mortara	Venturi	Mercedes	0.306s	69
13	Nick Cassidy	Virgin	Audi	0.339s	81
14	Sebastien Buemi	Nissan e.Dams	Nissan	0.374s	55
15	Alexander Sims	Mahindra	Mahindra	0.403s	89
16	Alex Lynn	Mahindra	Mahindra	0.420s	91
17	Andre Lotterer	Porsche	Porsche	0.445s	84
18	Stoffel Vandoorne	Mercedes	Mercedes	0.459s	78
19	Robin Frijns	Virgin	Audi	0.484s	73
20	Rene Rast	Audi	Audi	0.485s	98
21	Nyck de Vries	Mercedes	Mercedes	0.519s	76
22	Tom Blomqvist	NIO	NIO	0.548s	88
23	Sam Bird	Jaguar	Jaguar	0.579s	55
24	Lucas di Grassi	Audi	Audi	0.761s	68