The seven teams competing in the 2016 GP3 season completed a successful, productive shakedown of the feeder championship’s all-new car in France on Wednesday.
The GP3/16 hit the Magny-Cours track for a non-official test, which focused on reliability of the new car. All seven teams took part, running one car each.
The new machine is the third generation of car for the GP3 series and is considerably different to the previous model. The test also marked the first appearance for newcomers DAMS.
Nyck de Vries and Nirei Fukuzumi split running for ART GP, with Trident doing the same thing and giving track time to Giuliano Alesi in the morning and Sandy Stuvik in the afternoon.
Jack Aitken, Matthew Parry, Akash Nandy and Jake Hughes completed running for Arden, Koiranen GP, Jenzer and DAMS respectively. Former F1 driver Giedo van der Garde helped Campos with testing of the new car in the morning before handing over to Steijn Schothorst.
In total 323 laps were completed on day one of the test, which took place in changeable, drying conditions in France.
"The purpose of the shakedown is for the teams to learn how to operate this completely new car which includes a brand new Mecachrome bespoke engine and updated electronics," said GP3 technical director Didier Perrin.
"The teams have a lot to discover. By organising a shakedown with only one car per squad, it is the best way to transfer knowledge from the series’ development team to the GP3 teams.
"This will save them a lot of time during the early stages of operating the new car. We’re very happy with how today went.
"It was a trouble-free day for the most part and we completed even more laps than we expected. The only slight issue we had was the weather. Hopefully we will have better track conditions tomorrow and another positive day of running."
