The final day of the pre-season testing at Yas Marina opened once again in windy conditions. Alexander Rossi was the first driver to feed onto the track, closely followed by teammate Jordan King, but it was Stoffel Vandoorne who was the early pace setter. The proceedings were halted within the first forty minutes after Artem Markelov stopped on track at Turn 7. When the pitlane went green again, some drivers switched to super soft Pirelli tyres and put their visor down. Raffaele Marciello was the first man to dip under 1m50s, but Mitch Evans bettered the Italian’s laptime to break the 1m49s barrier. Vandoorne went even quicker and set a laptime of 1:48.921 just as a second red flag period occurred courtesy of Evans who stopped at Turn 9.

The session restarted and on the one hour mark, Marciello improved again, enough to edge Vandoorne out of the top spot. Evans went back on track and was able to go even faster in a 1:48.850 and took control of the timesheet. At the halfway mark, Richie Stanaway went top with a laptime four tenths quicker and sat pretty at the head of the standings until the chequered flag dropped. Pierre Gasly surged to second in the closing stages ahead of Evans, Marciello, Rossi, Vandoorne, Alex Lynn, Rio Haryanto, Sergey Sirotkin and Arthur Pic.

Morning results

Kiwi lads go 1-3 in final morning of GP2 testing