Bonanomi sets record pace at Valencia

Giedo van der Garde had been Bonanomi's closest challenger in the morning, but was stripped of his three fastest laps for running outside the bounds of the circuit.

Van der Garde bounced back to set the fastest time in the afternoon, eclipsing Guillaume Moreau's previous quickest time with just 17 minutes of the three and a half hour session remaining. Moreau had not featured in the morning as the Frenchman elected to save his new rubber while his KTR squad worked through a set-up programme.

"I had two sets of tyres for the afternoon and was really pleased with the time, and working with Cram," van der Garde. "I feel like I have been the most penalised driver over this past year in World Series.

"It was disappointing to get another penalty when we're only testing, especially so as I crossed the white line into Turn One before I made my (first) quick time on new tyres."

Tech 1 Racing's Charles Pic was second in the first session at Van der Garde's expense, but could only complete five laps following the lunch break after damaging his gearbox through spinning backwards while engaged in fourth gear. Pic's Tech 1 teammate Oliver Oakes also suffered gearbox maladies which stymied his running.

The Spanish driver and team combination of Dani Clos and Pons Racing were third fastest in the morning, setting a time only one hundredth of a second adrift of Pic. Bonanomi spent the afternoon experimenting with different rear suspension settings and could only manage fifth fastest.

Having sampled Comtec's machinery on Wednesday, British Formula Renault champion Duncan Tappy switched to Fortec Motorsport and completed the day in 16th, one place ahead of Russian Mikhail Aleshin, who struggled with a temperature of 103F.

RC Motorsport were reduced to running one entry for Pasquale di Sabatino as Johnny Cecotto Jr took the decision to rest his neck before a planned return on Friday.

Pos  Driver         Team                        Time      Laps
 1.  Bonanomi       Red Devil  T.Comtec         1:21.857   93
 2.  Garde          Cram Competition            1:21.968   72
 3.  Moreau         Ktr                         1:21.998   81
 4.  Pic            Tech1 Racing                1:22.032   54
 5.  Clos           Pons Racing                 1:22.042   89
 6.  Molina         Prema Powerteam             1:22.190   104
 7.  Herck          Prema Powerteam             1:22.211   115
 8.  Alcaraz        Pons Racing                 1:22.339   91
 9.  Baguette       Inter. Draco R.             1:22.390   87
10.  Mann           Cram Competition            1:22.429   57
11.  Iaconelli      Ktr                         1:22.534   94
12.  Duran          Interwetten.Com             1:22.553   93
13.  Wickens        Carlin Motorsport           1:22.558   100
14.  Barba          Inter. Draco R.             1:22.644   82
15.  Move           Carlin Motorsport           1:22.819   106
16.  Oakes          Tech1 Racing                1:22.852   90
17.  Romancini      Epsilon Euskadi             1:22.875   116
18.  Tappy          Fortec  Motorsport          1:22.961   76
19.  Aleshin        Victory Engineering         1:23.026   42
20.  Maassen        Red Devil T.Comtec          1:23.061   104
21.  Kimball        Victory Engineering         1:23.126   48
22.  Fauzy          Fortec Motorsport           1:23.136   66
23.  Perez          Interwetten.Com             1:23.185   77
24.  Garcia         Epsilon Euskadi             1:23.300   117
25.  Sabatino       Rc Motorsport               1:23.990   97
26.  Sureshwaren    Victory Engineering         1:24.835   64