Palmer leads the way in free practice
Jolyon Palmer has opened his Barcelona weekend in fine style, leading his rivals for almost the entire forty-five minutes of this morning’s free practice session in Spain to claim the top spot on the timesheets ahead of Felipe Nasr and teammate Stéphane Richelmi.
The Briton stopped the clocks with a time of 1:30.448, with his rivals unable to get within two tenths of his best time, despite the conditions: the session opened under the expected hot and sunny conditions, with temperatures rising throughout.
Palmer was the first driver to set a time, and although Nathanaël Berthon and Simon Trummer briefly moved past him, the Briton improved on their times on his next lap, before setting a laptime just eight minutes into the session which was never bettered.
Nevertheless, his rivals gave it a good go, with improvements up and down the grid as they battled for best of the rest status: Nasr and Richelmi were ultimately split by just one thousandth of a second, finishing ahead of Mitch Evans, Daniiel De Jong, Stoffel Vandoorne, Daniel Abt and Rio Haryanto. With everyone intimately familiar with the circuit, this afternoon’s qualifying session promises to be a cracker.
Barcelona – Free Practice
Driver
Team
Laptime
Laps
1.
Jolyon Palmer
DAMS
1:30.448
19
2.
Felipe Nasr
Carlin
1:30.651
15
3.
Stéphane Richelmi
DAMS
1:30.652
17
4.
Mitch Evans
RT RUSSIAN TIME
1:30.892
17
5.
Daniel De Jong
MP Motorsport
1:30.951
15
6.
Stoffel Vandoorne
ART Grand Prix
1:31.460
20
7.
Daniel Abt
Hilmer Motorsport
1:31.508
17
8.
Rio Haryanto
EQ8 Caterham Racing
1:31.510
18
9.
Tom Dillmann
Arden International
1:31.524
15
10.
Sergio Canamasas
Trident
1:31.650
16
11.
Stefano Coletti
Racing Engineering
1:31.657
14
12.
Nathanaël Berthon
Venezuela GP Lazarus
1:31.666
16
13.
Johnny Cecotto
Trident
1:31.813
19
14.
Arthur Pic
Campos Racing
1:31.854
16
15.
Conor Daly
Venezuela GP Lazarus
1:31.901
7
16.
Tio Ellinas
MP Motorsport
1:31.905
19
17.
Kimiya Sato
Campos Racing
1:31.912
17
18.
Simon Trummer
Rapax
1:32.087
16
19
Julian Leal
Carlin
1:32.128
18
20.
Alexander Rossi
EQ8 Caterham Racing
1:32.159
19
21.
Facu Regalia
Hilmer Motorsport
1:32.398
18
22.
Adrian Quaife-Hobbs
Rapax
1:32.560
14
23.
Rene Binder
Arden International
1:32.566
17
24.
Raffaele Marciello
Racing Engineering
1:32.640
17
25.
Artem Markelov
RT RUSSIAN TIME
1:32.784
16
26.
Takuya Izawa
ART Grand Prix
1:32.791
18