Salaquarda ends Aragon test on top
Filip Salaquarda topped the final day of Formula Renault 3.5 testing at the Motorland Aragon circuit in Spain
The Czech driver took advantage of fresh rubber early in the second hour of the session to go quickest in his RC Motorsport-run machine in 1m43.426s.
"We reached a good level of performance today," he said. "I drove my fastest time at the beginning of the afternoon, and after that we worked on a race simulation. This is very positive for next year."
Thick fog early on forced the cancellation of the morning session. Organisers responded by increasing the length of the afternoon session to five and a half hours.
With visibility still low, Pons driver Nelson Panciatici was the initial pace-setter before Salaquarda shot to the top of the timesheets.
A flurry of pitstops in the final half-hour allowed Comtec's British driver Jon Lancaster, Epsilon Euskadi's Keisuke Kunimoto and Pons driver Federico Leo all to lap within 15 hundredths of a second of Salaquarda's time.
Even quicker was Jean-Eric Vergne, who actually set the fastest lap of the three days so far in 1m43.186s. The Frenchman, however, was stripped of his two best lap times for overtaking under yellow flags, dropping his SG Formula car to fifth.
British Formula 3 graduate Walter Grubmuller Jr was sixth quickest, the Austrian one spot ahead of his team-mate James Walker, and two up on Panciatici.
Formula Renault Eurocup champion Albert Costa had his first run-out in a Formula Renault 3.5 car. The Spaniard was 20th quickest.
Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Filip Salaquarda RC 1m43.426s 59 2. Jon Lancaster Comtec 1m43.435s 42 3. Keisuke Kunimoto Epsilon Euskadi 1m43.500s 64 4. Federico Leo Pons 1m43.568s 54 5. Jean-Eric Vergne SG 1m43.642s 47 6. Walter Grubmuller Jr P1 1m43.786s 37 7. James Walker P1 1m43.797s 49 8. Nelson Panciatici Pons 1m43.809s 55 9. Sten Pentus Prema 1m43.889s 68 10. Sergey Afanasiev Carlin 1m44.025s 69 11. Daniil Move Mofaz 1m44.077s 71 12. Francesco Castellacci Interwetten 1m44.111s 64 13. Brendon Hartley Tech 1 1m44.223s 53 14. Victor Garcia Mofaz 1m44.246s 74 15. Anton Nebylitskiy Tech 1m44.254s 80 16. Daniel Ricciardo SG 1m44.307s 40 17. Mihai Marinescu Draco 1m44.336s 70 18. Alessandro Kouzkin Draco 1m44.511s 65 19. Roberto Merhi Prema 1m44.665s 67 20. Albert Costa Epsilon Euskadi 1m44.669s 59 21. Jan Charouz RC 1m44.718s 67 22. Pierre Combot Comtec 1m45.189s 57
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments