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Latifi claims day two honours in Bahrain

Canadian tops morning, De Vries the afternoon session

By Franck Drui

30 March 2017 - 17:04

Nicholas Latifi has topped day two by setting the pace in this morning’s test session at the Bahrain International Circuit, stopping the clock at 1:40.541 in the second half of the session to top the timesheets ahead of RUSSIAN TIME teammates Luca Ghiotto and Artem Markelov, while the afternoon was given over to race simulations, with Nyck De Vries topping the timesheets on 1:41.212 ahead of Gustav Malja and Charles Leclerc.

The day opened to gloriously sunny conditions, with the drivers heading out on their medium Pirelli compounds as soon as the lights went green. Johnny Cecotto set the early pace, stopping the clock at 1:41.371, four tenths faster than teammate Nyck de Vries. After a brief red flag Markelov hit his pace, but Ghiotto was the first man to break the 1:41 barrier, followed soon after by Leclerc and Norman Nato.

Just after the halfway mark Latifi grabbed P1 with his blistering lap on soft tyres, a tenth quicker than Ghiotto, and his rivals were unable to challenge. In the final hour a number of drivers tried different set ups to grab the top spot, but to no avail: Latifi owned the morning session when the chequered flag was shown.

Following a two hour break, the action resumed with the field mainly focusing on race simulations and pitstop practices. Sergio Sette Camara set the pace until Cecotto improved on the Brazilian’s laptime to go P1. With one hour left in the day, Camara reclaimed the top spot dipping under 1m42, before Malja also found some extra pace to move up to P2. Fifteen minutes later, de Vries blew past them all with a time good enough to be the afternoon’s fastest man.

After the chequered flag, Camara’s car was found underweight. Therefore, the MP Motorsport driver had all times deleted from the results, promoting Leclerc to the top 3 finish.

Day 3 will start tomorrow at 9.00 local time.

Morning results

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	1:40.541	23
2.	Luca Ghiotto	RUSSIAN TIME	1:40.678	25
3.	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	1:40.702	31
4.	Jordan King	MP Motorsport	1:40.884	26
5.	Charles Leclerc	PREMA Racing	1:40.885	33
6.	Norman Nato	Pertamina Arden	1:40.909	38
7.	Alexander Albon	ART Grand Prix	1:40.927	20
8.	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	1:41.057	20
9.	Oliver Rowland	DAMS	1:41.156	18
10.	Sergio Sette Camara	MP Motorsport	1:41.351	28
11.	Johnny Cecotto	Rapax	1:41.371	16
12.	Antonio Fuoco	PREMA Racing	1:41.398	41
13.	Louis Deletraz	Racing Engineering	1:41.463	19
14.	Nyck de Vries	Rapax	1:41.568	24
15.	Ralph Boschung	Campos Racing	1:41.984	34
16.	Sergio Canamasas	Trident	1:42.042	18
17.	Sean Gelael	Pertamina Arden	1:42.249	26
18.	Gustav Malja	Racing Engineering	1:42.347	16
19.	Raoul Hyman	Campos Racing	1:42.598	41
20.	Nabil Jeffri	Trident	1:42.973	20

Afternoon results

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Nyck de Vries	Rapax	1:41.212	23
2.	Gustav Malja	Racing Engineering	1:41.546	24
3.	Charles Leclerc	PREMA Racing	1:41.689	39
4.	Johnny Cecotto	Rapax	1:41.833	18
5.	Antonio Fuoco	PREMA Racing	1:41.957	41
6.	Sergio Canamasas	Trident	1:42.197	40
7.	Ralph Boschung	Campos Racing	1:43.171	36
8.	Nabil Jeffri	Trident	1:44.258	33
9.	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	1:44.354	43
10.	Louis Delétraz	Racing Engineering	1:44.415	37
11.	Oliver Rowland	DAMS	1:44.437	46
12.	Raoul Hyman	Campos Racing	1:45.008	31
13.	Jordan King	MP Motorsport	1:45.191	31
14.	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	1:45.705	32
15.	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	1:46.607	38
16.	Sean Gelael	Pertamina Arden	1:47.020	42
17.	Alexander Albon	ART Grand Prix	1:47.050	36
18.	Luca Ghiotto	RUSSIAN TIME	1:47.325	6
19.	Norman Nato	Pertamina Arden	1:47.379	33