Jérôme d’Ambrosio tops second day at Barcelona

History taught us the best window to set the fastest laptime at the Spaniard track is during the morning session. In the second day of the last pre-season tests, this theory was again verified with Jérôme d’Ambrosio claiming the top spot ahead of newcomer Christian Vietoris and Pastor Maldonado in the first half of the day.

The morning session though was red flagged seven times starting with Jules Bianchi who span at turn 4 nine minutes after the pitlane opened. It was then Adrian Zaugg’s turn to halt the session. Coloni’s Vladimir Arabadzhiev span at turn 7 on the two hour mark followed twenty minutes later by Dani Clos who stopped his Racing Engineering car near turn 5. Rodolfo Gonzalez lost control of his Arden machine at Turn 6 on the one hour mark. Six minutes later, it was Giacomo Ricci who span at Turn 5 and the last red flag was courtesy of Max Chilton who stopped at Turn 4. Amidst all this, d’Ambrosio managed to climb on top of the timesheet in a 1:27.182 closely followed by Vietoris and Maldonado. In fourth, Fabio Leimer at Ocean preceded Bianchi, Sam Bird and Clos. Luiz Razia finished in eighth place ahead of Ricci and Charles Pic.

Things went smoother in the afternoon expect for Marcus Ericsson who hit the barriers at the chicane before the last corner and had to sit through the rest of the session. Leimer took the lead early in the session and kept it until the ten minute mark when d’Ambrosio improved his laptime by one tenth, but soon enough, it was Maldonado who claimed top spot lapping the Spanish track just four hundredths faster than the Belgian. Leimer confirmed his strong form finishing third fastest ahead of Sergio Perez at Addax, Vietoris, Razia, Davide Valsecchi, Pic, Clos and Oliver Turvey on the second iSport car.

The session will start again tomorrow at 9am, local time.