Russell leads the way in free practice

George Russell has got his penultimate race weekend underway in fine style by topping free practice this morning at the Circuito de Jerez, grabbing the top spot halfway through the session and continuing to improve on his own time all the way to the flag to claim the honours by less than a tenth from ART teammates Jack Aitken and Anthoine Hubert.  

The Briton’s best time of 1:30.214 came late in the session with all of the field on track: the closing minutes saw improvements all along the pitlane, with Aitken closing down his title rival to just 0.073s but unable to reclaim the top spot.

The track opened to warm and sunny conditions, with Tatiana Calderon leading all of her rivals straight out on track: the Colombian was the first driver to set a competitive time but was soon displaced by Raoul Hyman as the times tumbled: Aitken, Hubert and Kevin Joerg all spent time on top of the timesheets, with the Briton in P1 at the halfway mark just before teammate Russell grabbed it from him.

The session calmed down until the closing minutes, with everyone on track and looking to improve. Russell pushed past his previous best time, with most of the field also improving behind him, but no one was able to overturn the Mercedes F1 junior driver before the flag emerged to close the session.

Fukuzumi will be disappointed to round out the ART 1-2-3-4 behind his teammates but ahead of Dan Ticktum, Leonardo Pulcini, Steijn Schothorst, Niko Kari, Calderon and Bruno Baptista, all of whom were within a second of the top spot and will be looking to improve in this afternoon’s qualifying session.

Provisional Qualifying Classification