Felipe Nasr Barca GP2

Felipe Nasr leads Barcelona free practice…
 
Carlin driver sets the pace in Round 3 opening session
 
Felipe Nasr has set the tone: the Carlin racer is hungry for glory this week at Circuit de Catalunya and he wasted no time in showing his rivals how quick he can be setting up the fastest laptime in this morning’s free practice session in a 1:30.103, seven tenths clear from James Calado who finished second.
 
The session opened on a drying track with most of the drivers opting to wait before taking to the track. Robin Frijns set the early pace. The rookie’s latpime of 1:31.264 gave the signal for the remainder of the drivers to feed onto the track. Frijns improved on his next attempt to clock in a time of 1:31.010.
 
Ten minutes into the session, Nasr put his head down and lit sectors 1 and 2 in purple before crossing the start/finish line in 1:30.103, a clear nine tenths from Frijns. His teammate Jolyon Palmer also found the extra pace to move up to P2, but eight tenths slower than the Brazilian and thus enough room for Calado and Johnny Cecotto to split the Carlin pair.
 
Halfway through the session, the track was yellow flagged when Simon Trummer stopped at Turn 13. Most of the drivers made their way back into the pits. Series leader Stefano Coletti who had yet to make an appearance onto the track decided to benefit from light traffic to make his way into the top ten. At the chequered flag, Nasr retained P1 ahead of Calado, Cecotto, Palmer, Frijns, Coletti, Sam Bird, Tom Dillmann, Marcus Ericsson and Fabio Leimer.
 
If this morning’s weather forecast brought rain, this afternoon’s should bring sunny conditions also known as the best conditions for a classic GP2 qualifying session at 16.00 local time.
 
Barcelona – Free Practice
 
Driver
Team
Laptime
Laps
1.
Felipe Nasr
Carlin
1:30.103
13
2.
James Calado
ART Grand Prix
1:30.864
11
3.
Johnny Cecotto
Arden International
1:30.951
8
4.
Jolyon Palmer
Carlin
1:30.977
15
5.
Robin Frijns
Hilmer Motorsport
1:31.010
13
6.
Stefano Coletti
Rapax
1:31.092
8
7.
Sam Bird
RUSSIAN TIME
1:31.265
10
8.
Tom Dillmann
RUSSIAN TIME
1:31.290
10
9.
Marcus Ericsson
DAMS
1:31.295
12
10.
Fabio Leimer
Racing Engineering
1:31.303
10
11.
Mitch Evans
Arden International
1:31.339
11
12.
Daniel Abt
ART Grand Prix
1:31.389
11
13.
Kevin Ceccon
Trident Racing
1:31.492
11
14.
Alexander Rossi
Caterham Racing
1:31.528
14
15.
Stéphane Richelmi
DAMS
1:31.577
12
16.
Jon Lancaster
Hilmer Motorsport
1:31.846
16
17.
Kevin Giovesi
Venezuela GP Lazarus
1:31.930
7
18.
Sergio Canamasas
Caterham Racing
1:32.020
15
19
Rene Binder
Venezuela GP Lazarus
1:32.077
11
20.
Nathanaël Berthon
Trident Racing
1:32.276
14
21.
Jake Rosenzweig
Barwa Addax Team
1:32.413
12
22.
Rio Haryanto
Barwa Addax Team
1:32.468
14
23.
Julian Leal
Racing Engineering
1:32.646
10
24.
Adrian Quaife-Hobbs
MP Motorsport
1:33.455
9
25.
Simon Trummer
Rapax
1:41.742
0
26.
Daniel De Jong
MP Motorsport
0