Pulcini tops final day of pre-season tests

Leonardo Pulcini has nabbed the top spot on the final day of the pre-season GP3 Series tests at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia, setting the fastest time of 1:21.233 in the early qualy-style portion of the morning session with Jack Aitken joining him later on the same time, just two hundredths ahead of Dorian Boccolacci. Alessio Lorandi topped the afternoon with a time of 1:21.333, just ahead of Raoul Hyman and Boccolacci.

Fears of poor weather abated as the field was greeted on arrival by gloriously sunny conditions ahead of the morning session, with all drivers immediately on track to make the most of it. Anthoine Hubert and Aitken set the early pace, with ART drivers filling the top four positions at the 15 minute mark before Ryan Tveter pulled out the two fastest laps to nab the top spot from them.

At the half hour mark Raoul Hyman put himself on the top of the timesheets with Aitken in P2 but Pulcini wasn’t finished, running a tenth faster to claim the honours. Aitken threw everything he had at the Brazilian, reclaiming 2^nd just after the one hour mark before setting the same time to the thousandth as Pulcini halfway through the session, after which he joined his rivals in race runs.

After a one hour break the teams re-emerged on track, with the afternoon session largely given over to more long distance simulations. Tveter put himself on the top spot just 15 minutes into the session ahead of Trident teammate Boccolacci, but the Frenchman went one better half an hour later to claim P1. It looked like the top times were set until twenty minutes from the end, when Hyman went first just before Lorandi topped the timesheets twice on consecutive laps to take the final honours.

This completes the pre-season test programme: the teams will reform at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona for the opening round of the 2017 GP3 Series on 12-14 May.

Day 2 Morning results

Day 2 Afternoon results