Drugovich sets fastest overall time to end Barcelona test F2 on top
Felipe Drugovich ended the three-day FIA Formula 2 in-season test on top after posting the fastest time overall on the final day of running in Barcelona.
Felipe Drugovich, UNI-Virtuosi
Formula Motorsport Ltd
The UNI-Virtuosi driver significantly lowered the benchmark by becoming the only driver over the three days to dip underneath the 1m28s bracket at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona.
Drugovich topped the morning session with a 1m27.945s effort in a hotly contested three hour morning session held in dry conditions.
The Brazilian equipped with the new-for-2021 medium compound tyre was 0.160s faster than Prema Racing’s Oscar Piastri, while Friday pacesetter Christian Lundgaard (ART Grand Prix) was third.
Drugovich’s time was 0.335s faster than the previous test best set by MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor on Saturday.
Teams were able to select from Pirelli’s new-for-2021 hard and medium compound tyres for the three-day test. The hard compound made its debut at the season opening round at Bahrain last month while the medium tyre is yet to be raced.
Following in a similar pattern to yesterday, the faster times arrived in the morning session as teams focussed on qualifying simulations on the medium tyres. Only eight tenths of a second covered the top 10.
Bahrain winner and F2 rookie Liam Lawson (Hitech Grand Prix) was fourth fastest in the morning just 0.010s faster than team-mate Juri Vips.
Theo Pourchaire (ART Grand Prix), Robert Shwartzman (Prema Racing), Bent Viscaal (Trident), Lirim Zendeli (MP Motorsport) and championship leader Guanyu Zhou (UNI Virtuosi) completed the top 10.
The session was halted twice, first by HWA’s Alessio Deledda stopping on track early on before Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala came to a halt in the final minutes.
The afternoon session produced much slower times with Trident’s Viscaal topping the timesheets courtesy of a 1m30.280s effort.
Viscaal edged HWA’s Matteo Nannini by 0.066s with the sister Trident of Marino Sato in third.
Deledda was fourth in front of DAMS’ Marcus Armstrong, Zendeli, Roy Nissany (DAMS), Shwartzman, Lawson and Piastri.
The afternoon session was interrupted by two stoppages caused by Lawson and Saturday pacesetter Verschoor.
F2 will return to action at the Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix for round two on 20-22 May.
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments