Hubert completes day 2 morning leading art 1-2 at Paul Ricard

Anthoine Hubert opened the second day of GP3 Series testing at Le Castellet, France with the fastest lap of the morning session, setting a 1:48.674 to wrest top spot from ART Grand Prix teammate Callum Ilott.

Although overcast, dry weather conditions meant that the teams could start their running immediately on slick Pirelli tyres. Trident was the first team to hit the track, sending out all four cars as soon as the light went green – Ryan Tveter leading the quartet onto the circuit.

The ART trio of Nikita Mazepin, Ilott and Hubert immediately set about trading best times, but after the first half an hour of running, Trident’s Alessio Lorandi sat atop the standings.

It wasn’t long until the front-running cars were lapping faster than yesterday, with Mazepin the first driver to beat the fastest Wednesday time set by Jake Hughes. Hubert was quick to displace his teammate at the top, leading the way after the first hour.

There was something of a lull approaching the midpoint of the session, with teams prioritising longer runs and data assessment rather than chasing outright laptimes. Ilott got the ball rolling once more midway through the morning’s running to break into the 1m48s bracket, holding top spot for almost an hour.

With 40 minutes of the session remaining, Hubert once more returned to head the timesheets with under a tenth in hand over Ilott. The Frenchman remained unchallenged throughout the rest of the morning, once more going into the break on top of the standings.

Ilott remained in second place, and Leonardo Pulcini (Campos Racing) broke ART’s stranglehold on the top three with a late 1:49.051 lap. Mazepin was fourth best ahead of Tatiana Calderon (Jenzer Motorsport), while yesterday’s fastest runner Hughes was sixth best ahead of Lorandi.

Simo Laaksonen (Campos) was eighth ahead of MP Motorsport’s Dorian Boccolacci, while Pedro Piquet rounded out the top 10 having completed a session high of 54 laps.

source: gp3series.com