Jordan King ended the second day of the second pre-season GP2 test quickest for Racing Engineering, with just over a tenth separating him and PREMA Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi.
The Briton set his quickest lap in the morning session despite the better conditions in the afternoon.
With installation laps completed, times began to tumble as King’s first attempt, a 1:26.048, was bettered by Sergey Sirotkin on the hard Pirelli tyres as the Russian posted a 1:25.710.
Tuesday’s quickest driver, Norman Nato, soon dipped below the 1:25s mark. He was swiftly followed by almost everyone as King once again reclaimed the fastest time.
A red flag just over an hour into the session halted proceedings temporarily. Rafael Maricello ran wide at Turn 14 and brushed the barrier. As the session got underway again, things didn’t last long as a second red flag, this time for Sirotkin, interrupted the session.
Just before lunch a third red flag fell as Luca Ghiotto stopped on track between turns 7 and 8.
The afternoon session saw no improvements as drivers once again focussed on longer runs and race simulations.
Rapax’s Gustav Malja set the early pace with a 1:26.319 – more than a second slower than he achieved in the morning – and the time stood until the end of the session.
Before that though, a fourth red flag was called for Marciello after his Russian Time car came to a stop between turns 6 and 7.
The top ten at the end of the day looked like this: King, Giovinazzi, Nobuharu Matsushita, Pierre Gasly, Nato, Sirotkin, Alex Lynn, Arthur Pic, Malja and Luca Ghiotto.
