Rossi, Abt, Evans lead first day of Bahrain GP2 testing

Rossi, Abt, Evans lead first day of Bahrain GP2 testing

MotorNews.co.nz10:13am 20 March 2014

Alexander Rossi posted the quickest time of the opening day of the GP2 test in Bahrain during the afternoon session.

With a fastest lap of 1m40.604s, the Caterham driver narrowly bettered the morning benchmark of his Force India-backed Hilmer counterpart Daniel Abt by seven hundredths of a second.

Abt’s afternoon time was even closer to that of the American, falling just 0.012s short. Mitch Evans improved after a red flag with ten minutes remaining to take third for Russian Time.

Lazarus tryout Conor Daly was fourth ahead of DAMS driver Jolyon Palmer and another late improver Johnny Cecotto (Trident).

Raffaele Marciello was seventh for Racing Engineering ahead of fellow Italian Vittorio Ghirelli, who has taken the vacant Trident seat for this test.

The top ten was completed by Carlin’s Felipe Nasr and ART ace Stoffel Vandoorne.

The test – the second and last pre-season running before the opening round in Bahrain on 5-6 April – continues on Thursday and Friday.

Afternoon session times

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Alexander Rossi	EQ8 Caterham Racing	1:40.604		30
2	Daniel Abt	Hilmer Motorsport	1:40.616	0.012	26
3	Mitch Evans	Russian Time	1:40.680	0.076	25
4	Conor Daly	Venezuela GP Lazarus	1:40.734	0.130	20
5	Jolyon Palmer	DAMS	1:40.769	0.165	23
6	Johnny Cecotto	Trident	1:40.829	0.225	13
7	Raffaele Marciello	Racing Engineering	1:40.932	0.328	25
8	Vittorio Ghirelli	Trident	1:40.976	0.372	21
9	Felipe Nasr	Carlin	1:41.022	0.418	23
10	Stoffel Vandoorne	ART Grand Prix	1:41.041	0.437	28
11	Jon Lancaster	MP Motorsport	1:41.045	0.441	22
12	Nathanael Berthon	Venezuela GP Lazarus	1:41.065	0.461	21
13	Facu Regalia	Hilmer Motorsport	1:41.131	0.527	28
14	Julian Leal	Carlin	1:41.195	0.591	17
15	Rio Haryanto	EQ8 Caterham Racing	1:41.275	0.671	23
16	Stephane Richelmi	DAMS	1:41.359	0.755	23
17	Arthur Pic	Campos Racing	1:41.368	0.764	21
18	Stefano Coletti	Racing Engineering	1:41.394	0.790	23
19	Rene Binder	Arden International	1:41.426	0.822	21
20	Andre Negrao	Arden International	1:41.438	0.834	18
21	Adrian Quaife-Hobbs	Rapax	1:41.548	0.944	23
22	Simon Trummer	Rapax	1:41.709	1.105	18
23	Artem Markelov	Russian Time	1:41.726	1.122	25
24	Takuya Izawa	ART Grand Prix	1:42.013	1.409	29
25	Kimiya Sato	Campos Racing	1:42.204	1.600	23
26	Daniel De Jong	MP Motorsport	1:42.282	1.678	19