Racing Engineering’s Dani Clos battled Rapax’ Pastor Maldonado for the bragging rights of the second day of GP2 pre-season testing today – but could not knock yesterday’s leader off his perch.
Maldonado topped the timesheets once again with a fastest time of 1:09.76 (not comparable with the previous day as a different track configuration was used). He was one-tenth faster than his Spanish rival despite Clos leading the field for most of the day.
The morning session was trouble-free in excellent weather conditions following yesterday’s rain and red flags. Clos recorded a fastest lap of 1:10.288 ahead of Maldonado.
ART rookies Jules Bianchi and Sam Bird were third and fourth while Clos’ team-mate Christian Vietoris made the top five by virtue of driving four-hundredths of a second faster than Arden’s Charles Pic.
Temperatures dropped slightly at the beginning of the afternoon session. With 20 minutes left on the clock, Maldonado bettered Clos’ morning time by half a second while the Spaniard also improved his personal best, but not enough to claim quickest of the day.
They were the only two drivers able to lap the French track with times of less than 1:10.
Super Nova’s rookie Josef Kral finished third ahead of iSport’s Oliver Turvey and GP2 returnee Ho-Pin Tung at Dams. Less fortunate was Marcus Ericsson who lost control of his Super Nova car at the pit exit at the beginning of the afternoon session and could not complete a lap as a result.
In the faster afternoon session Turvey was fourth, Bird sixth and Ocean’s Max Chilton did not set a lap time, despite running well in the first session.
The three-day test session will conclude tomorrow. For the day’s full results, visit the GP2 website here.