Pizzonia dominates Jerez testing
Antonio Pizzonia was comfortably the fastest driver on the first day of GP2 testing at Jerez on Monday
The Brazilian's best lap was more than seven tenths of a second faster than his nearest challenger, as he blitzed the field in the afternoon.
Franck Perera followed up his impressive performance at Paul Ricard last week by setting the second fastest time for Durango, while Campos also showed well again with Giorgio Pantano third quickest.
Pizzonia said: "It was good today. We were looking good this morning but I had fast laps ruined by a red flag and traffic.
"We did some short runs in the afternoon, and on new tyres it was good."
Despite his Formula One and Champ Car experience, the Brazilian is a GP2 rookie, and he hasn't decided on his plans for 2007 yet.
"At the moment I don't know what I'm doing next year, but it's going to be a difficult decision. There is a possibility to race here, but on the other hand there is Champ Car.
"It will be a difficult decision, but whatever I do I want to be in a position to win races."
After being outshone by his former British F3 rival Bruno Senna last week, Mike Conway had a much better day as he worked with iSport for the first time, and was fourth quickest.
Senna was driving for reigning champions ART, as the French squad returned after missing the last test. However, the Brazilian was only 17th fastest, while Ernesto Viso was 12th for the team despite his previous GP2 experience.
World Series by Renault front-runner Pastor Maldonado was fastest in the morning session, but he dropped to ninth by the end of the day.
Afternoon times:
Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Antonio Pizzonia FMS International 1.27.184 11 2. Franck Perera Durango 1.27.893 23 3. Giorgio Pantano Campos Racing 1.28.163 17 4. Mike Conway iSport 1.28.228 22 5. Jose Maria Lopez BCN 1.28.299 27 6. Kazuki Nakajima Dams 1.28.630 26 7. Nicolas Lapierre Dams 1.28.664 27 8. Lucas di Grassi iSport 1.28.722 19 9. Pastor Maldonado BCN 1.28.796 34 10. Alexandre Negrao Piquet Sport 1.28.974 21 11. Christian Bakkerud Arden 1.28.974 31 12. Ernesto Viso ART 1.28.988 25 13. Luiz Razia Racing Engineering 1.28.990 39 14. Luca Filippi Super Nova 1.29.001 30 15. Jason Tahinci FMS International 1.29.145 24 16. Borja Garcia Super Nova 1.29.233 28 17. Bruno Senna ART 1.29.241 30 18. Kohei Hirate Trident racing 1.29.325 23 19. Alberto Valerio Arden 1.29.429 12 20. Sergio Jimenez Racing engineering 1.29.456 17 21. Vitaly Petrov Piquet Sport 1.29.729 27 22. Gavin Cronje DPR 1.29.770 34 23. Bruce Jouanny Durango 1.29.892 29 24. Stephen Jelley DPR 1.30.236 36 25. Markus Winkelhock Trident Racing 1.30.372 22 26. Karun Chandhok Campos Racing 1.30.889 28
Morning times:
Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Pastor Maldonado BCN Competicion 1:28.876 22 2. Kazuki Nakajima Dams 1:28.880 20 3. Franck Perera Durango 1:28.928 21 4. Lucas Di Grassi iSport International 1:29.061 25 5. Nicolas Lapierre Dams 1:29.214 20 6. Antonio Pizzonia FMS International 1:29.216 27 7. Borja Garcia Super Nova International 1:29.309 24 8. Alexandre Negrao Piquet Sports 1:29.446 26 9. Jose Maria Lopez BCN Competicion 1:29.628 21 10. Giorgio Pantano Campos Racing 1:29.718 12 11. Vitaly Petrov Piquet Sports 1:29.992 30 12. Ernesto Viso ART Grand Prix 1:30.217 22 13. Mike Conway iSport International 1:30.237 27 14. Kohei Hirate Trident Racing 1:30.449 18 15. Bunno Senna ART Grand Prix 1:30.575 20 16. Christian Bakkerud Arden International 1:30.710 29 17. Sergio Jimenez Racing Engineering 1:30.778 30 18. Luca Filippi Super Nova International 1:30.901 16 19. Bruce Jouan Ny Durango 1:31.269 31 20. Luiz Razia Racing Engineering 1:31.355 37 21. Karun Chandhok Campos Racing 1:31.635 25 22. Alberto Valerio Arden International 1:31.759 25 23. Jason Tahinci FMS International 1:32.012 36 24. Gavin Cronje DPR 1:32.360 19 25. Stephen Jelley DPR 1:33.871 33 26. Markus Winkelhock Trident Racing 1:45.525 9
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