Magnussen tops first day at Aragon

Magnussen, who was testing for the Spanish Pons Racing team as his prize for finishing second in the Formula Renault North European Cup this season, was an instant pace-setter in the morning session and completed 49 laps, setting a best time of 1m43.609s.

Although he did not take part in the afternoon running, his time was still good enough to be the fastest of the day as less ideal track conditions slowed the pace at the front by a few tenths of a second.

"The first time you press the accelerator, you say to yourself: OK, this is another world," said Magnussen, who is stepping up to the German Formula 3 Cup with Motopark Academy next year.

"Everything is more effective - the braking, acceleration, road holding, grip... You need time to get used to it, but I felt comfortable pretty quickly. We've done some very good work with Pons Racing. It was a very good day."

Formula Renault NEC champion Antonio Felix da Costa was second quickest overall for P1, the Portuguese driver 0.047s behind Magnussen and a similar margin ahead of Marco Sorensen's RC car.

Australian Daniel Ricciardo, stepped up to Formula Renault 3.5 with the same Carlin squad that he claimed the British F3 title with this year, and was fourth quickest - ahead of Mofaz's Greg Mansell.

Mansell had sat on top of the timesheets for most of the afternoon session. He was knocked off the top spot late on, however, by da Costa, once a number of drivers fitted fresh rubber to their cars. However, with the pace at the front end slower than during the morning, nobody beat Magnussen's early marker.

Formula Renault UK champion Dean Smith was among the drivers to significantly improve their times during the afternoon. The Comtec driver moved up from 10th to seventh, splitting the Tech 1 machines of Sten Pentus and Nathanael Berthon.

Jean-Eric Vergne did likewise, the Frenchman switching from Mofaz to SG Formula for the afternoon and finding a second's worth of pace to move up from 14th to ninth.

The test continues for two more days.