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Nurburgring FR3.5: Oliver Rowland fastest in free practice

Championship leader Oliver Rowland set the fastest time in Formula Renault 3.5 free practice at the Nurburgring on Friday, ahead of this weekend's seventh round of the season

In the afternoon session, Pietro Fantin led the way initially on a 1m43.995s, before the session was red-flagged as Carlin's misfortunes returned.

Both its entries of Tom Dillmann and Sean Gelael stopped in separate incidents, Dillmann's shunt causing damage to the circuit's barriers leading to a further delay of 10 minutes.

On the restart, Rowland worked his way down to the benchmark 1m41.961s just after the session's midway mark.

He was in part assisted in maintaining the top position when newcomer Rene Binder suffered an incident, which caused the session to be abandoned one minute prematurely.

Gustav Malja also dipped under the 1m42s to end the afternoon in second, ahead of Strakka team-mate Tio Ellinas and Friday morning pacesetter Dean Stoneman.

Stoneman was quickest in the opening 50 minute morning session, spearheading a strong showing from the DAMS team.

The Red Bull junior driver's team-mate Nyck de Vries claimed second in FP1, and the pair swapped positions at the top of the timing screens during the final 17 minutes of action.

GP3 runner-up and this year's highest-placed FR3.5 rookie Stoneman left it until after the chequered flag to record his lap of 1m42.897s, edging out McLaren junior driver de Vries for top spot by 0.032s.

Both men are chasing their maiden FR3.5 victory in Germany, but de Vries's task is made more difficult by the imposition of a two-place grid penalty for the Nurburgring's first race on Saturday, following his involvement in a collision with Bruno Bonifacio at Silverstone.

Ellinas took third in FP1, ahead of former GP2 racer Dillmann.

Rowland ended the morning in fifth, and the Racing Steps protege enjoyed the cushion of Alfonso Celis Jr and Malja between himself and title rival Matthieu Vaxiviere.

Nearly 10 minutes of the session was lost when Gelael's Carlin machine stopped at Turn 1 when his fire extinguisher accidentally set-off, bringing out the red flags.

The Indonesian briefly returned to the track late in the session, but propped up the classification.

FREE PRACTICE 1

Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Dean Stoneman DAMS 1m42.369s - 18
2 Nyck de Vries DAMS 1m42.486s 0.117s 18
3 Tio Ellinas Strakka Racing 1m42.570s 0.201s 18
4 Tom Dillmann Jagonya Ayam with Carlin 1m42.609s 0.240s 18
5 Oliver Rowland Fortec Motorsports 1m42.665s 0.296s 15
6 Alfonso Celis AVF 1m42.667s 0.298s 19
7 Gustav Malja Strakka Racing 1m42.929s 0.560s 17
8 Matthieu Vaxiviere Lotus 1m43.115s 0.746s 15
9 Nicholas Latifi Arden Motorsport 1m43.134s 0.765s 17
10 Egor Orudzhev Arden Motorsport 1m43.138s 0.769s 19
11 Beitske Visser AVF 1m43.223s 0.854s 21
12 Pietro Fantin International Draco Racing 1m43.324s 0.955s 18
13 Jazeman Jaafar Fortec Motorsports 1m43.431s 1.062s 17
14 Bruno Bonifacio International Draco Racing 1m43.594s 1.225s 20
15 Yu Kanamaru Pons Racing 1m44.535s 2.166s 15
16 Aurelien Panis Tech 1 Racing 1m44.562s 2.193s 18
17 Rene Binder Pons Racing 1m44.593s 2.224s 16
18 Marlon Stockinger Lotus 1m44.706s 2.337s 16
19 Roy Nissany Tech 1 Racing 1m44.906s 2.537s 14
20 Sean Gelael Jagonya Ayam with Carlin 1m45.146s 2.777s 4

FREE PRACTICE 2

Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Oliver Rowland Fortec Motorsports 1m41.961s - 14
2 Gustav Malja Strakka Racing 1m41.989s 0.028s 14
3 Tio Ellinas Strakka Racing 1m42.156s 0.195s 16
4 Dean Stoneman DAMS 1m42.199s 0.238s 15
5 Pietro Fantin International Draco Racing 1m42.235s 0.274s 17
6 Matthieu Vaxiviere Lotus 1m42.392s 0.431s 14
7 Nyck de Vries DAMS 1m42.400s 0.439s 15
8 Beitske Visser AVF 1m42.697s 0.736s 18
9 Nicholas Latifi Arden Motorsport 1m42.712s 0.751s 16
10 Bruno Bonifacio International Draco Racing 1m42.884s 0.923s 16
11 Jazeman Jaafar Fortec Motorsports 1m42.954s 0.993s 15
12 Egor Orudzhev Arden Motorsport 1m43.030s 1.069s 15
13 Aurelien Panis Tech 1 Racing 1m43.070s 1.109s 16
14 Marlon Stockinger Lotus 1m43.101s 1.140s 13
15 Roy Nissany Tech 1 Racing 1m43.104s 1.143s 15
16 Rene Binder Pons Racing 1m43.318s 1.357s 14
17 Alfonso Celis AVF 1m43.399s 1.438s 16
18 Yu Kanamaru Pons Racing 1m43.773s 1.812s 15
19 Tom Dillmann Jagonya Ayam with Carlin 1m50.970s 9.009s 3
20 Sean Gelael Jagonya Ayam with Carlin 1m51.934s 9.973s 2


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