Villa sets new Ricard record in test

The Spaniard, who has switched to Super Nova after three years with Racing Engineering, was quickest in both the morning and afternoon sessions, with his time of 1:11.930 after lunch breaking Romain Grosjean's previous record by 0.101 seconds.

Returnee Lucas di Grassi was second quickest today, 0.149 seconds down on Villa's time in his debut run with Racing Engineering.

GP2 Asia points leader Kamui Kobayashi completed the top three for DAMS, ahead of Campos Racing's Romain Grosjean and ART's Pastor Maldonado.

The test was the first chance for the teams to try the GP2 Dallara-Renault's new engine, which offers an additional 25bhp and an improved power curve.

Series technical director Didier Perrin was satisfied with the new package's performance.

"We are very pleased with today's results," he said. "They confirm our predictions regarding the gain of performance we were expecting with the new engine. Moreover, we did not suffer from any serious reliability issues."

Day one combined testing times:

Pos  Driver               Team                Time
 1.  Javier Villa         Super Nova          1:11.930
 2.  Lucas di Grassi      Racing Engineering  1:12.079
 3.  Kamui Kobayashi      DAMS                1:12.140
 4.  Romain Grosjean      Campos              1:12.262
 5.  Pastor Maldonado     ART                 1:12.270
 6.  Andreas Zuber        Fisichella          1:12.300
 7.  Alberto Valerio      Piquet              1:12.439
 8.  Luca Filippi         Super Nova          1:12.481
 9.  Davide Valsecchi     Durango             1:12.509
10.  Jerome d'Ambrosio    DAMS                1:12.574
11.  Edoardo Mortara      Arden               1:12.607
12.  Roldan Rodriguez     Piquet              1:12.742
13.  Diego Nunes          iSport              1:12.774
14.  Vitaly Petrov        Campos              1:12.893
15.  Nico Hulkenberg      ART                 1:13.010
16.  Dani Clos            Racing Engineering  1:13.138
17.  Sergio Perez         Arden               1:13.182
18.  Giedo van der Garde  iSport              1:13.221
19.  Karun Chandhok       Ocean               1:13.356
20   Davide Rigon         Trident             1:13.362
21.  Hamad Al Fardan      Trident             1:13.477
22.  Luiz Razia           Fisichella          1:13.584
23.  Michael Herck        DPR                 1:13.788
24.  Nelson Panciatici    Durango             1:13.860
25.  Giacomo Ricci        DPR                 1:14.961
26.  Alvaro Parente       Ocean