F2 testing: Ferrari junior Charles Leclerc leads Bahrain day one
Ferrari junior Charles Leclerc inherited the top spot on the opening day of F2 testing in Bahrain, as initial pace-setter Nobuharu Matsushita lost his time over a red flag infringement
Reigning GP3 champion Leclerc, who will contest the 2017 F2 campaign with reigning champions Prema, had topped the morning session with a 1m41.454s effort.
That lap looked to be good enough to leave him at the top at the end of the first day, with rain arrived shortly after the midday break.
But while the majority of the afternoon session consisted of wet-weather running, the track dried significantly before the end of the session, and a late red flag for Russian Time's Artem Markelov left enough room for a last-minute run.
That gave ART driver Matsushita - who was fastest on the first day of last week's Barcelona test - the chance to vault to the top, the Japanese driver posting a best lap 1m41.165s.
But following the session, the McLaren protege's lap was invalidated as he was found not to have respected red flag proceedings.
As such, Leclerc - who did not get a chance to improve late on - returned to top spot, while Jordan King moved up to second, 0.18 seconds off.
Russian Time's Luca Ghiotto and Arden's Barcelona test pace-setter Norman Nato were third and fourth, while Matsushita's original best time from the morning proved good enough for fifth.
DAMS duo Oliver Rowland and Nicholas Latifi were sixth and seventh, with Matsushita's ART team-mate Alex Albon, Rapax's Nyck de Vries and Prema's Antonio Fuoco making up the top 10.
Louis Deletraz (Racing Engineering) and Rapax's Johnny Cecotto were originally in the top 10 on the strength of their afternoon laps, but like Matsushita also lost their best efforts.
Campos Racing's new test driver Raoul Hyman, who stepped in for ex-F1 driver Roberto Merhi in Bahrain, completed the running order in the morning and was seventh in the afternoon.
COMBINED WEDNESDAY TIMES:
Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Charles Leclerc | Prema Racing | 1m41.454s | - | 15 |
2 | Jordan King | MP Motorsport | 1m41.634s | 0.180s | 10 |
3 | Luca Ghiotto | RUSSIAN TIME | 1m41.700s | 0.246s | 15 |
4 | Norman Nato | Pertamina Arden | 1m41.718s | 0.264s | 10 |
5 | Nobuharu Matsushita | ART Grand Prix | 1m41.777s | 0.323s | 15 |
6 | Oliver Rowland | DAMS | 1m42.005s | 0.551s | 7 |
7 | Nicholas Latifi | DAMS | 1m42.104s | 0.650s | 5 |
8 | Alexander Albon | ART Grand Prix | 1m42.110s | 0.656s | 17 |
9 | Nyck de Vries | Rapax | 1m42.121s | 0.667s | 7 |
10 | Antonio Fuoco | Prema Racing | 1m42.167s | 0.713s | 15 |
11 | Artem Markelov | RUSSIAN TIME | 1m42.201s | 0.747s | 13 |
12 | Louis Deletraz | Racing Engineering | 1m42.353s | 0.899s | 11 |
13 | Johnny Cecotto Jr. | Rapax | 1m42.596s | 1.142s | 11 |
14 | Sean Gelael | Pertamina Arden | 1m42.632s | 1.178s | 9 |
15 | Ralph Boschung | Campos Racing | 1m42.890s | 1.436s | 15 |
16 | Sergio Canamasas | Trident | 1m42.950s | 1.496s | 13 |
17 | Nabil Jeffri | Trident | 1m42.964s | 1.510s | 15 |
18 | Sergio Sette Camara | MP Motorsport | 1m43.126s | 1.672s | 20 |
19 | Gustav Malja | Racing Engineering | 1m43.263s | 1.809s | 14 |
20 | Raoul Hyman | Campos Racing | 1m43.926s | 2.472s | 19 |
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