Sergey Sirotkin came back from the summer break in fine form: the ART Grand Prix ace set the fastest laptime in today’s Free Practice session at Spa-Francorchamps in a 1:58.828, just 0.22s ahead of his closest rival Pierre Gasly. Norman Nato took third spot.
The eighth round of the 2016 GP2 season opened under blue skies and in hot temperatures as the twenty-two cars fed onto the track trying to warm up their Pirelli Hard compounds. It was DAMS’ Alex Lynn who set the early pace but rookie Antonio Giovinazzi was able to improve on the Briton’s laptime and was the first man to break the 2m barrier. However, the Italian’s laptime was soon bettered by his teammate Gasly who went top in a 1:59.050.
With ten minutes down into the session, Artem Markelov found some extra pace to lap the Belgian track in a 1:59.263 but it was not enough to edge Gasly out of the top spot. On a busy track, the Renault F1 Test driver still managed to find enough clear space to clock in a laptime of 1:58.828 and put his ART car at the top of the standings. Halfway through the session, the cars returned to the pits for some fresh rubber but after the action resumed nobody was able to improve on Sirotkin’s laptime and the Russian driver ended the trouble-free session on top.
Gasly and Norman Nato completed the top three whilst Jordan King finished fourth ahead of Markelov, Giovinazzi, Raffaele Marciello, Marvin Kirchhöfer, Luca Ghiotto and Nobuharu Matsushita, all of whom will be surely looking to close the gap to the Russian in this afternoon’s hot Qualifying session.