2015 GP3 Pre-Season Test (Barcelona) Day 1

Mardenborough leads way for Carlin

© GP3 Series

The sky was quite dark as the drivers headed out onto the track. However; little was done at the start with no times set after an hour of competition. In fact Palou and Askanani were the only drivers to have set competitive laps after 90 minutes, these were soon beaten by Mardenborough. He continued to improve dipping into the 1:34's after a few minutes of running.

The other driver attempted to beat his time but were not successful as Gomez stopped her car at turn 5. With an hour to go, the teams went out to improve their times with Kirchhofer and Eriksson being the most successful. However; Jann stayed on top as the GP3 graduates looked on.

The rain came out for the second session as the drivers chose not to do much running. However; returned after the shower. Unsurprisingly, the drivers were about 4 seconds off the pace in the conditions, but quickly improved. 

Under the damp conditions, it was Morris who lead the standings and with half an hour to go, and looked like he was the man to beat. Mardenborough went 2nd, but was unable to beat his compatriot. Unfortunately the session was cut short by Fuoco who stopped out on track, the circuit went live with 1 minute left, but the cars did no competitive running. 

Results:

Pos.	Driver	Nat.	Team	Morning	Afternoon
1	Seb Morris	GBR	Status Grand Prix	1:36.158	1:35.740
2	Jann Mardenborough	GBR	Carlin	1:34.910 [1]	1:35.843
3	Matt Parry	GBR	Koiranen GP	1:35.420	1:36.406
4	Alex Palou	ESP	Campos Racing	1:35.340	1:36.578
5	Alex Fontana	SUI	Status Grand Prix	1:36.044	1:36.695
6	Sandy Stuvik	THA	Status Grand Prix	1:36.661	1:36.768
7	Emil Bernstorff	GBR	Arden International	1:35.979	1:36.817
8	Antonio Fuoco	ITA	Carlin	1:35.213	1:36.852
9	Alfonso Celis, Jr.	MEX	ART Grand Prix	1:35.271	1:36.923
10	Matheo Tuscher	SUI	Jenzer Motorsport	1:35.405	1:36.929
11	Pal Varhaug	NOR	Jenzer Motorsport	1:35.004 [2]	1:37.129
12	Kevin Ceccon	ITA	Arden International	1:36.622	1:37.261
13	Esteban Ocon	FRA	ART Grand Prix	1:35.070	1:37.929
14	Aleksander Bosak	POL	Arden International	1:37.349	1:38.201
15	Mitchell Gilbert	AUS	Carlin	1:35.576	1:38.267
16	Zaid Ashkanani	KUW	Campos Racing	1:37.568	1:38.489
17	Ralph Boschung	SUI	Jenzer Motorsport	1:35.013 [4]	1:38.498
18	Marvin Kirchhöfer	GER	ART Grand Prix	1:35.005 [3]	1:38.774
19	Luca Ghiotto	ITA	Trident	1:35.433	1:38.822
20	Oscar Tunjo	COL	Trident	1:35.290	1:39.309
21	Samin Gomez	VEN	Campos Racing	1:38.753	1:39.322
22	Adderly Fong	HGK	Koiranen GP	1:35.337	1:39.443
23	Jimmy Eriksson	SWE	Koiranen GP	1:35.033 [5]	1:39.613
24	Artur Janosz	POL	Trident	1:36.336	1:39.631
The Positions are the results of the Afternoon Session [1] – Position in Morning Session (only top 5 shown)

So whats the Conclusion:

Despite his excellent form last year, Eriksson continues to go under the radar, while he did manage a good time in the morning, he often doesn't carry a lot of pace. This could be concerning with many new young drivers coming through. The same should be said for Varhaug. Considering his experience, he should be at the top, instead he scraps amongst his inexperienced team mates.

Ghiotto is another driver who hasn't performed as well as he should have, after getting pole in his first race, the driver has been nowhere. But; despite this, Morris and Parry are starting to perform after a, so far, mediocre performance.

-|RacingRecaps|-