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Hockenheim, Free Practice : Coletti leads the way

Racing Engineering driver quickest in free practice

By Franck Drui

18 July 2014 - 13:15
Hockenheim, Free Practice : Coletti (…)

Stefano Coletti has opened his race weekend in Germany in fine style setting the quickest laptime of the free practice session in a 1:24.771, a tenth quicker than Stoffel Vandoorne. The Monegasque driver’s teammate Raffaele Marciello completed the top three.

The pitlane opened in scorching conditions with all twenty-six drivers feeding to the track on Medium Pirelli tyres. Series leader Jolyon Palmer set the early pace, but his teammate Stéphane Richelmi soon bettered the Briton’s laptime. Vandoorne was able to go even quicker but was edged out of the top stop by Coletti who lapped the German track in a 1:25.126 – 0.01s better than the Belgian driver.

Rookie Vandoorne found some clean air again, improving in the first two sectors and setting the third sector in purple. He dipped under 1m25s, but quickly after that Coletti was once again able to better the ART ace’s laptime by one tenth to sit pretty at the top of the timesheet. Behind the duo, Alexander Rossi put his Campos car in third, but as the temperature rose and with thirteen minutes left on the clock, rookie Marciello moved up to third. In the dying minutes, Conor Daly put his head down and on fresh rubbers moved up from P25 to fifth, finishing at the chequered flag ahead of Richelmi, teammate Nathanaël Berthon, Felipe Nasr, Johnny Cecotto and Rene Binder.

With everyone now up to speed with the circuit’s challenges, this afternoon’s qualifying session promises to be another GP2 classic.

PosDriverTeamTimeLaps
1. Stefano Coletti Racing Engineering 1:24.771 14
2. Stoffel Vandoorne ART Grand Prix 1:24.881 21
3. Raffaele Marciello Racing Engineering 1:25.154 19
4. Alexander Rossi Campos Racing 1:25.177 20
5. Conor Daly Venezuela GP Lazarus 1:25.228 21
6. Stéphane Richelmi DAMS 1:25.271 20
7. Nathanaël Berthon Venezuela GP Lazarus 1:25.299 19
8. Felipe Nasr Carlin 1:25.329 23
9. Johnny Cecotto Trident 1:25.355 21
10. Rene Binder Arden International 1:25.359 18
11. Daniiel De Jong MP Motorsport 1:25.448 19
12. Jolyon Palmer DAMS 1:25.494 21
13. Arthur Pic Campos Racing 1:25.497 20
14. Takuya Izawa ART Grand Prix 1:25.589 19
15. Rio Haryanto EQ8 Caterham Racing 1:25.671 16
16. Sergio Canamasas Trident 1:25.676 16
17. Mitch Evans RT RUSSIAN TIME 1:25.719 20
18. Daniel Abt Hilmer Motorsport 1:25.736 22
19. Simon Trummer Rapax 1:25.792 22
20. Jon Lancaster Hilmer Motorsport 1:25.841 18
21. Tom Dillmann EQ8 Caterham Racing 1:25.911 29
22. Adrian Quaife-Hobbs Rapax 1:25.964 19
23. André Negrao Arden International 1:26.031 18
24. Artem Markelov RT RUSSIAN TIME 1:26.139 18
25. Marco Sorensen MP Motorsport 1:26.314 12
26. Julian Leal Carlin 1:26.672 12

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