Baguette ahead in first practice

The Belgian's time of 1m46.717s edged out RC Motorsport's Esteban Guerrieri, who was making his first appearance in the series since winning at Barcelona last year, by 0.084s.

"The circuit [which is staging its maiden international race meeting], doesn't have the bumps of the Algarve," said Draco Racing driver Baguette.

"It's a little like Le Mans Bugatti in terms of the radius of some of the corners, but the difference is the long straight here. I think that it's the longest on the calendar."

RC, which has run a single car for most of the year, has paired Guerrieri with European F3 Open race-winner Bruno Mendez this weekend, as regular driver Pasquale di Sabatino has run out of budget.

"The car is still familiar, it just feels a bit more agile than the Superleague car that I have been driving," said Guerrieri. "It is funny, as when I stepped up to World Series from F3 I felt that the power was quite a big step.

"The track is very green at the moment, and I expect the times to come down quite a lot, but it looks like the circuit has been designed for overtaking. I think we should be very quick, we are on it."

A late effort from Carlin's Jaime Alguersuari moved the Toro Rosso Formula 1 driver into third place ahead of SG Formula's Anton Nebylitskiy. Algarve winner Jon Lancaster was fifth, with Brendon Hartley leading the Tech 1 Racing assault in sixth.

Hartley's team-mate Charles Pic is aiming to maintain his runner-up spot in the overall standings over the course of this weekend's races.

The Frenchman enjoys a seven point advantage over P1 Motorsport's James Walker. The Renault Driver Development man ended the morning one place ahead of Walker in 15th position.

Pos  Driver               Team             Time       Gap
 1.  Bertrand Baguette    Draco            1m46.717s
 2.  Esteban Guerrieri    RC               1m46.801s  + 0.084s
 3.  Jaime Alguersuari    Carlin           1m47.221s  + 0.504s
 4.  Anton Nebylitskiy    SG               1m47.228s  + 0.511s
 5.  Jon Lancaster        Comtec           1m47.335s  + 0.618s
 6.  Brendon Hartley      Tech 1           1m47.492s  + 0.775s
 7.  Fairuz Fauzy         Mofaz            1m47.542s  + 0.825s
 8.  Chris van der Drift  Epsilon Euskadi  1m47.688s  + 0.971s
 9.  Marcos Martinez      Pons             1m47.710s  + 0.993s
10.  Salvador Duran       Interwetten      1m47.816s  + 1.099s
11.  Daniil Move          P1               1m47.988s  + 1.271s
12.  Oliver Turvey        Carlin           1m47.990s  + 1.273s
13.  Guillaume Moreau     SG               1m48.011s  + 1.294s
14.  Sten Pentus          Mofaz            1m48.062s  + 1.345s
15.  Charles Pic          Tech 1           1m48.540s  + 1.823s
16.  James Walker         P1               1m48.571s  + 1.854s
17.  Julian Leal          Prema            1m48.598s  + 1.881s
18.  Federico Leo         Pons             1m48.670s  + 1.953s
19.  Greg Mansell         Comtec           1m48.847s  + 2.130s
20.  Keisuke Kunimoto     Epsilon Euskadi  1m50.096s  + 3.379s
21.  Filip Salaquarda     Prema            1m50.193s  + 3.476s
22.  Marco Barba          Draco            1m50.245s  + 3.528s
23.  Bruno Mendez         RC               1m50.459s  + 3.742s
24.  Mihai Marinescu      Interwetten      1m50.947s  + 4.230s