Quaife-Hobbs impresses in testing
Adrian Quaife-Hobbs repeated his Monday performance to head the penultimate Formula Renault 3.5 test session at Motorland Aragon
The Comtec driver's effort of 1m42.557s is the fastest recorded over the three days. The time is unlikely to be equalled, as in the afternoon teams will run 'prize' drivers invited by Renault Sport Technologies.
Quaife-Hobbs' performance earned a glowing review from Comtec engineer Paul Heath: "We ran Adrian for a day last year, and he is so much more confident now. He is very determined and very positive. Okay, with so many rookies running it is the not strongest field, I think I would be about P6 if I was driving, but there are still people like [Daniel] Zampieri and [Jean-Eric] Vergne out there.
"Adrian was fantastic in testing at Barcelona last week. He ran wet tyres that Greg [Mansell] had used in the [preceding] race and went P1. He has been competitive in every session, I'm very impressed."
Quaife-Hobbs had not intended to drive this morning, but was keen to recover some track time after a broken spring and gearbox selector severely limited his running on Tuesday afternoon.
"We weren't supposed to go out today," said the Briton, "but because of the gearbox problem yesterday we still had many sets of new tyres left.
"Over four days of testing at Barcelona and here I have been fastest in half the sessions, and have hardly been out of the top three. [Brendon] Hartley, [Alexander] Rossi and myself have been at the top most of the time. They aren't here now, but I don't think the track is any quicker. We also set the time with low-downforce.
"We decided to do these tests as testing is so restricted in most categories. I have a GP2 test with Coloni coming up, but obviously given how well this has gone Formula Renault 3.5 is pretty high up for next year."
GP3 racer Mirko Bortolotti ended the morning as runner-up for BVM Target, with a time of 1m42.786s. The Italian's team-mate Daniel Zampieri finished fourth, behind KMP Racing's Anton Nebylitskiy.
Marco Barba returned to Formula Renault 3.5 with his former team Draco to take fifth spot. The Spaniard was crowned European Open Formula 3 champion at Jerez last weekend.
Nelson Panciatici completed the top six for KMP Racing. The Frenchman has competed with Junior Lotus in 2010.
Pos Driver Team Time Gap 1. Adrian Quaife-Hobbs Comtec 1m42.557s 2. Mirko Bortolotti BVM Target 1m42.786s + 0.229s 3. Anton Nebylitskiy KMP 1m42.937s + 0.380s 4. Daniel Zampieri BVM Target 1m43.338s + 0.781s 5. Marco Barba Draco 1m43.355s + 0.798s 6. Nelson Panciatici KMP 1m43.382s + 0.825s 7. Cesar Ramos P1 1m43.391s + 0.834s 8. Walter Grubmuller P1 1m43.449s + 0.892s 9. Valtteri Bottas Tech 1 1m43.624s + 1.067s 10. Filip Salaquarda ISR 1m43.790s + 1.233s 11. Jean Eric Vergne Carlin 1m43.892s + 1.335s 12. Dean Stoneman Junior Lotus 1m43.933s + 1.376s 13. Giovanni Venturini Epsilon Euskadi 1m44.215s + 1.658s 14. Kevin Korjus Carlin 1m44.269s + 1.712s 15. Tom Dillmann ISR 1m44.336s + 1.779s 16. Will Stevens Epsilon Euskadi 1m44.567s + 2.010s 17. Stephane Richelmi Draco 1m44.617s + 2.060s 18. Kimiya Sato Comtec 1m44.752s + 2.195s 19. Luciano Bacheta Junior Lotus 1m44.827s + 2.270s 20. Oliver Webb Fortec 1m45.279s + 2.722s 21. Tom Blomqvist Fortec 1m45.561s + 3.004s 22. Max Snegirev Fortec 1m45.665s + 3.108s 23. Adriano Buzaid Tech 1 1m47.343s + 4.786s
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