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Aleshin leads first practice at Spa

Round one winner Mikhail Aleshin maintained his strong start to the year by setting the fastest time in free practice at round two of Formula Renault 3.5 at Spa-Francorchamps

The Carlin driver's time of 1m02.972s edged out Formula 3 Euro Series graduate Stefano Coletti by 0.071 seconds.

Nathanael Berthon was third for reigning teams' champion Draco, ahead of former British F3 sparring partners Walter Grubmuller and championship leader Daniel Ricciardo.

Coletti's Comtec team-mate Greg Mansell completed the top six. Mansell arrived in the Ardennes fresh from a test of his Ginetta LMP1 car, and an outing in a Radical, at Snetterton on Thursday.

With new tyres considered to be worth between 1.5 and 2.0s at the seven kilometre circuit, lap times proved to be spread out as several drivers opted to conserve their fresh rubber. Fortec's pairing of Sten Pentus, winner of Motorland Aragon's second race earlier this month, and Jon Lancaster were among those to forsake any running on new tyres, and ended the morning outside the top 20.

Conditions over the duration of the one hour and 15 minute session were marginally disrupted by very light rain falling at the Bus Stop chicane and over parts of the back of the circuit.

Pos  Driver             Team             Time       Gap
 1.  Mikhail Aleshin    Carlin           2m02.972s
 2.  Stefano Coletti    Comtec           2m03.043s  + 0.071s
 3.  Nathanael Berthon  Draco            2m03.523s  + 0.551s
 4.  Walter Grubmuller  P1               2m03.742s  + 0.770s
 5.  Daniel Ricciardo   Tech 1           2m03.823s  + 0.851s
 6.  Greg Mansell       Comtec           2m03.864s  + 0.892s
 7.  Jan Charouz        P1               2m03.931s  + 0.959s
 8.  Daniil Move        Junior Lotus     2m04.005s  + 1.033s
 9.  Daniel Zampieri    Pons             2m04.093s  + 1.121s
10.  Brendon Hartley    Tech 1           2m04.157s  + 1.185s
11.  Albert Costa       Epsilon Euskadi  2m04.157s  + 1.185s
12.  Keisuke Kunimoto   Epsilon Euskadi  2m04.363s  + 1.391s
13.  Filip Salaquarda   ISR              2m04.382s  + 1.410s
14.  Anton Nebylitskiy  KMP              2m04.488s  + 1.516s
15.  Julian Leal        Draco            2m04.578s  + 1.606s
16.  Jake Rosenzweig    Carlin           2m04.660s  + 1.688s
17.  Federico Leo       Pons             2m04.680s  + 1.708s
18.  Victor Garcia      KMP              2m04.736s  + 1.764s
19.  Esteban Guerrieri  ISR              2m04.851s  + 1.879s
20.  Nelson Panciatici  Junior Lotus     2m04.898s  + 1.926s
21.  Jon Lancaster      Fortec           2m05.815s  + 2.843s
22.  Sten Pentus        Fortec           2m05.882s  + 2.910s
23.  Sergio Canamasas   Interwetten      2m06.392s  + 3.420s
24.  Bruno Mendez       Interwetten      2m08.114s  + 5.142s

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