After GP3 Series champion Esteban Gutierrez set an early pace on Tuesday, it was his very teammate who took control in the timing charts with the best time of 1:36.300. Lap after lap, the Lotus ART driver started improving his lap times until finally stopping at 1:35.940, thus becoming the only driver in the GP2 Asia field to stop the clock under one minute and 36 seconds.
The Team Lotus vs Lotus Renault rivalry in Formula 1 translated into a battle between Team AirAsia and Lotus ART in the GP2 Series testing, as second overall was Team AirAsia's David Valsecchi, clocked in 1:36.025. The pair was followed in the morning time reports by the iSport International duo Sam Bird and Marcus Ericsson.
The afternoon session was not as quick, as the drivers started focusing on race simulations for the GP2 Asia Series opener later this week. This time it was Valsecchi who managed to score the best time of a troublesome session, 1:36.159, as the running was affected by a couple of red flags.
In fact, it was Valsecchi himself who caused the second interruption of the test, after colliding with Romain Grosjean 10 minutes before the session end. Team AirAsia made it 2 out of 2 in the afternoon, as their other driver Luiz Razia finished in 2nd place, only 0.013 seconds off Valsecchi's pace. Once again, the Top 4 was completed by the two iSport International racers Sam Bird and Marcus Ericsson.
The 4th season of the GP2 Asia Series is to open its doors to the fans this very weekend, starting with the first practice session on Thursday, in Abu Dhabi.
Google News