Baku, FP: Nato leads the way at Baku

Frenchman quickest in Free Practice

By Franck Drui

17 June 2016 - 10:02
Baku, FP: Nato leads the way at Baku

GP2 Series leader Norman Nato had the perfect start to his race weekend today as he topped the timesheet in the free practice session at the Baku city circuit in a 1:55.394 ahead of rookie Antonio Giovinazzi and Sergey Sirotkin.

The session opened under sunny but windy conditions as the drivers fed onto the dirty Azerbaijani track on Medium Pirelli tyres. Nato set the early pace in a 1:58.148 as the drivers got to grips with the twisty and technical new track. The RUSSIAN TIME pair were the first drivers to challenge the Racing Engineering man: Artem Markelov went top first, but Raffaele Marciello bettered his teammate’s time in a 1:57.464 to sit pretty at the top of the standings. The session was interrupted by a first Virtual Safety Car as an ambulance was moved out of the run off area at Turn 15.

When the action picked up again, PREMA’s Giovinazzi found some extra pace to dip under 1m57s to claim the top spot – +0.5s ahead of Nato who had then moved up to P2. The Italian ace went even faster shortly after that and lapped the track in a 1:55.719 as Sirotkin and Pierre Gasly also improved to move to P2 and P3 respectively.

In the final stages, Nato went quickest and edged Giovinazzi out of P1. Sirotkin found a clear lap to improve and moved up to third. The run off area at Turn 15 proved to be useful as Marciello, Philo Paz Armand, Gustav Malja and Nobuharu Matsushita all tested it out with the latter stopping and retiring with five minutes left on the clock. The VSC was redeployed until the chequered flag as the marshals retrieved the ART car.

At the end of the session, Nato remained top ahead of Giovinazzi, Sirotkin, Gasly, Rowland, Luca Ghiotto, Jordan King, Arthur Pic, Marciello and Sergio Canamasas. With the drivers now more familiar with this new layout, today’s qualifying session promises to be thrilling.

PosDriverTeamTimeLaps
1. Norman Nato Racing Engineering 1:55.394 16
2. Antonio Giovinazzi PREMA Racing 1:55.719 15
3. Sergey Sirotkin ART Grand Prix 1:56.093 16
4. Pierre Gasly PREMA Racing 1:56.494 17
5. Oliver Rowland MP Motorsport 1:56.871 17
6. Luca Ghiotto Trident 1:57.059 16
7. Jordan King Racing Engineering 1:57.091 15
8. Arthur Pic Rapax 1:57.438 16
9. Raffaele Marciello RUSSIAN TIME 1:57.464 8
10. Sergio Canamasas Carlin 1:57.538 14
11. Marvin Kirchhöfer Carlin 1:57.585 14
12. Artem Markelov RUSSIAN TIME 1:57.587 15
13. Mitch Evans Pertamina Campos Racing 1:57.799 17
14. Nicholas Latifi DAMS 1:58.397 17
15. Nobuharu Matsushita ART Grand Prix 1:58.432 13
16. Gustav Malja Rapax 1:58.808 16
17. Alex Lynn DAMS 1:59.723 16
18. Philo Paz Armand Trident 1:59.757 11
19. Jimmy Eriksson Arden International 2:00.493 17
20. Nabil Jeffri Arden International 2:00.561 17
21. Sean Gelael Pertamina Campos Racing 2:00.769 14
22. Daniël de Jong MP Motorsport 2:01.794 15

F2

Search

Motorsport news

Pics

Videos