Yas Marina, Tests: Matsushita tops Day 1

Nobuharu Matsushita dominated day 1 of post-season testing at Yas Marina Circuit: the Japanese ace set the quickest laptime of both sessions at the wheel of his ART Grand Prix car. Nicholas Latifi and Pierre Gasly completed the top 3.

Day 1 of post-season testing opened this morning with the twenty-four drivers on Pirelli Medium tyres. After a series of installation laps; thirty minutes into the session, Matsushita set the best laptime in a 1:49.180, three tenths quicker than teammate Oliver Rowland. Alex Lynn moved up to P2 on the one hour mark with Norman Nato also able to improve enough to edge out Rowland from P3.

The proceedings were briefly red flagged to collect some debris after Campos’ Sean Gelael clipped the barrier at turn 19. The Indonesian driver was able to re-join the pits. The rest of the session ran smoothly until the chequered flag and Matsushita’s laptime remained unchallenged. Behind the top three, Rowland, Pierre Gasly (on newcomers PREMA Racing’s car), Nicholas Latifi (DAMS), Tio Ellinas (RUSSIAN TIME), André Negrao (Rapax), Richie Stanaway (Carlin), and Nick Yelloly (MP Motorsport) completed the top ten.

It was night time when the pitlane went green again. Jordan King set the early pace, but Matsushita returned to P1 with a 1:48.909 - four tenths better than his teammate Rowland who moved up to P2. The Brit then found some extra pace reducing the gap to the Japanese, but not enough to claim the top spot.

Thirty minutes into the session, Stanaway moved up to P1 with a laptime one tenth better than Matsushita, but Latifi edged the Kiwi out with a laptime of a 1:48.418. Gasly also improved and moved up to P2 whilst Yelloly climbed up to P3. With fifteen minutes left on the clock, Matsushita put his down and dipped under 1m48s setting a laptime half a second better than Latifi.

At the chequered flag, Gasly finished third ahead of Rowland, Artem Markelov, Yelloly, Nato, Stanaway, Dean Stoneman (Carlin) and Negrao.

Tomorrow’s session will start at 12.00 and will run until 14.30. The proceedings will resume at 18.00 and will end at 20.30.

Morning results

Afternoon results