PREMA Racing capped off a dominant two days in Jerez with the lead of all four sessions, as Arthur Leclerc finished fastest in both the morning and afternoon stints, setting the quickest time overall at testing.
Leclerc set a 1:30.634 in the opening stint to beat Carlin’s Zak O’Sullivan and MP Motorsport’s Caio Collet, before dropping an even quicker 1:29.366 in the afternoon.
ART Grand Prix’s Martins missed out on first place in the afternoon session by only 0.014s, with Hitech Grand Prix’s Isack Hadjar 0.245s back in third.
PREMA had dominated on Day 1 as well, with Leclerc fastest on a wet morning, before Ollie Bearman finished first on a drying track in the afternoon.
MORNING
After a soggy Tuesday in Jerez, the track remained damp on Wednesday morning for Day 2 and the wet tyres were slotted back on as 25 of the field headed out onto the track.
Josep María Martí set the pace for Campos before the field switched to dry-weather tyres and the final five cars hit the tarmac. With slicks strapped on, the benchmark quickly began to drop, and Martins broke the 1m 31s marker for the first time.
Several others joined Martins in the same time bracket as the Alpine prodigy was bumped down to fourth, with Ferrari junior Leclerc replacing him at the top of the order thanks to a 1:30.628.
Leclerc’s time was only marginally better than Carlin rookie O’Sullivan, who dropped a 1:30.634 to go second fastest, while Collet completed the top three for MP Motorsport, ahead of his former teammate, Martins, who was also less than a tenth off P1.
Franco Colapinto rounded out the top five but was just over two tenths slower than Leclerc. Oliver Rasmussen made the top 10 on his second day of running for Trident, ahead of ART’s Juan Manuel Correa and Day 1’s fastest driver, Ollie Bearman.
Hitech Grand Prix’s Kaylen Frederick and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Reece Ushijima also made the top 10, with Carlin’s Enzo Trulli running the most laps (53) on a more representative morning in Spain.
This was despite three stoppages during the session, as Jenzer Motorsport’s Ido Cohen brought out two Red Flags and his teammate Federico Malvestiti caused a third.
AFTERNOON
The drivers returned to warmer conditions in the afternoon on a completely dry track, with fresh tyres on Collet’s MP producing a benchmark time of 1:30.359.
With slicks to spare after the wet running on Day 1, the time continued to drop throughout the session, as Trident’s Zane Maloney became the first driver to go under 1m 30s.
Hunter Yeany’s Campos caused a Red Flag and interrupted the action around the midway point, but once it got back underway, the quickest time fell further.
Leclerc took the biggest chunk out of it, posting a 1:29.556 to go quickest for the third session out of four. The PREMA Racing driver beat out Martins, who was only 0.014s off the top time.
A further two tenths back was Round 1 Sprint Race winner Hadjar, who completed the top three for Hitech Grand Prix. Colapinto managed fourth, just 0.003s behind. Rasmussen made the top 10 once again as the Dane continued to adjust to his new machinery.
The session came to a slightly premature end as Juan Manuel Correa stopped at Turn 6 and brought out a red flag in the final seconds. By this point, Maloney had fallen to seventh, behind Frederick. Meanwhile, Bearman and ART Grand Prix’s Grégoire Saucy completed the top 10.
Ushijima posted the most laps of the afternoon stint, completing an impressive 65 tours of the Jerez circuit.
F3 will return on April 15 for another two days of in-season testing at Barcelona.
