Spielberg, FP: Giovinazzi on top in Free Practice

Italian driver quickest at the Red Bull Ring

By Franck Drui

1 July 2016 - 13:05
Spielberg, FP: Giovinazzi on top (...)

Antonio Giovinazzi’s top form continues: the PREMA Racing ace set the quickest laptime in today’s Free Practice at Spielberg in a 1:13.922, two tenths faster than teammate Pierre Gasly. Jordan King completed the top 3.

The session opened in warm temperatures with the cars feeding onto the track on Soft Pirelli tyres. Nicholas Latifi set the early pace ahead of Luca Ghiotto, but Alex Lynn was the first man to dip under 1m15s and moved to the top of the timesheet. Gasly found some extra pace to better the Briton’s laptime, with Giovinazzi also able to move up to P2. However, Sergey Sirotkin was on a mission and went quicker to sit at the top with a laptime of 1:14.476.

Fifteen minutes into the session, the Virtual Safety Car was briefly deployed after Latifi span and stopped at Turn 8. The Canadian driver managed to rejoin the pits safely. When the action was live, King claimed the top spot in a 1:14.241 whilst Gasly pipped Sirotkin to go P2. With 20 minutes left on the clock, Gustav Malja stopped at Turn 4 due to technical gremlins which caused a red flag period to retrieve the Rapax car. When the track was green again, there were thirteen minutes left in the session. There was another VSC period after Mitch Evans and Nabil Jeffri went off at Turn 1 almost simultaneously. The Arden driver continued, but the Campos man could not; thus ending his session prematurely.

In the dying minutes, Giovinazzi found a clear lap to clock a blazing laptime of 1:13.922 whilst Gasly also improved on his personal best to edge out King and take P2. At the chequered flag, the Italian rookie looked strong ahead of this afternoon’s qualifying session. Gasly and King finished P2 and P3 respectively ahead of Raffaele Marciello, Artem Markelov, Sirotkin, Oliver Rowland, Lynn, Ghiotto and Marvin Kirchhöfer.

PosDriverTeamTimeLaps
1. Antonio Giovinazzi PREMA Racing 1:13.922 20
2. Pierre Gasly PREMA Racing 1:14.912 22
3. Jordan King Racing Engineering 1:14.241 19
4. Raffaele Marciello RUSSIAN TIME 1:14.444 19
5. Artem Markelov RUSSIAN TIME 1:14.471 19
6. Sergey Sirotkin ART Grand Prix 1:14.476 19
7. Oliver Rowland MP Motorsport 1:14.645 19
8. Alex Lynn DAMS 1:14.649 23
9. Luca Ghiotto Trident 1:14.687 21
10. Marvin Kirchhöfer Carlin 1:14.736 22
11. René Binder ART Grand Prix 1:14.799 22
12. Sergio Canamasas Carlin 1:14.870 22
13. Sean Gelael Pertamina Campos Racing 1:14.870 22
14. Norman Nato Racing Engineering 1:14.965 21
15. Nabil Jeffri Arden International 1:14.999 22
16. Daniël de Jong MP Motorsport 1:15.110 21
17. Mitch Evans Pertamina Campos Racing 1:15.134 16
18. Arthur Pic Rapax 1:15.296 23
19. Nicholas Latifi DAMS 1:15.367 15
20. Gustav Malja Rapax 1:15.731 14
21. Jimmy Eriksson Arden International 1:15.822 20
22. Philo Paz Armand Trident 1:17.194 21

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