ART Grand Prix’s Nirei Fukuzumi topped the opening day of the first GP3 Series of 2016 at Estoril.
The Japanese Formula 3 graduate clocked the best time of the day in the afternoon, lapping the Portuguese circuit in 1m28.645s.
He narrowly edged out Arden’s Jake Dennis to the top spot by 0.015s.
Alexander Albon and Charles Leclerc were third and fourth, making it three ART cars in a closely congested top four.
Dennis’ Arden team-mate Jack Aitken was fifth, with Jake Hughes sixth for DAMS.
Steijn Schothorst was fastest for Campos Racing in the morning session, but could manage just 19th on the leaderboard in the afternoon.
Dennis and Albon completed the top three, with afternoon pacesetter Fukuzumi in seventh.
The morning session was marked by two red flags, the first for an on-track stoppage for Arden’s Tatiana Calderon, and the second prompted by a spin by Konstantin Tereshchenko.
Tereshchenko caused a third red flag in the afternoon when he stopped with a technical issue.
The three-day test will resume on Wednesday.
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