JOLYON PALMER SETS THE PACE IN MONTE CARLO
 Series leader quickest in morning free practice
Series leader Jolyon Palmer has set the record straight in this morning’s free practice: the Briton posted the quickest laptime with a blazing 1:20.707, three tenths faster than Johnny Cecotto. Monegasque Stéphane Richelmi finished third in the other DAMS car.
The session opened in overcast conditions. All cars fed onto the track on soft Pirelli tyres with Palmer sitting pretty at the top of the standings early on. As the clock continued to tick down, the track improved and so did the latpimes. Cecotto looked pretty fast, but traffic at La Rascasse meant he could not dip under 1m22s. That was not the case for Felipe Nasr: the Brazilian set a laptime of 1:21.949, but Coletti snatched the top spot going four hundredths faster than the Carlin man.
At mid-session, most drivers came back to the pits to switch to Super Soft tyres, including Nasr who was on a flier when he slightly touched the wall at the entrance of the tunnel, then missed the apex at Turn 10 and ended his course into the wall at Turn 11. The session was briefly red flagged as marshalls recovered the damaged Carlin machine. At the re-start Cecotto went P1 but once again lost a bit of time at Sector 3 behind Facu Regalia. Palmer had a clear track and broke the 1m21s barrier on super soft compounds. His laptime was never bettered.
In the dying minutes, Richlemi found some extra pace to move up to third ahead of countryman Coletti. Mitch Evans, Sergio Canamasas, Rio Haryanto, Nasr, Julian Leal and Alexander Rossi completed the top ten. The qualifying session will be divided into groups of sixteen minutes each. Following a ballot which took place during the GP2 drivers’ briefing, the two groups have been established. Group A will consist of odd numbered cars whilst Group B will consist of even numbered cars.
Monte Carlo – Free Practice
Driver
Team
Laptime
Laps
1.
Jolyon Palmer
DAMS
1:20.707
24
2.
Johnny Cecotto
Trident
1:21.043
24
3.
Stéphane Richelmi
DAMS
1:21.573
22
4.
Stefano Coletti
Racing Engineering
1:21.902
24
5.
Mitch Evans
RT RUSSIAN TIME
1:21.929
23
6.
Sergio Canamasas
Trident
1:21.933
24
7.
Rio Haryanto
EQ8 Caterham Racing
1:21.935
21
8.
Felipe Nasr
Carlin
1:21.949
15
9.
Julian Leal
Carlin
1:22.132
24
10.
Alexander Rossi
EQ8 Caterham Racing
1:22.183
25
11.
Simon Trummer
Rapax
1:22.237
26
12.
Daniel Abt
Hilmer Motorsport
1:22.296
26
13.
Rene Binder
Arden International
1:22.386
23
14.
Stoffel Vandoorne
ART Grand Prix
1:22.442
24
15.
Raffaele Marciello
Racing Engineering
1:22.937
26
16.
André Negrao
Arden International
1:23.028
24
17.
Kimiya Sato
Campos Racing
1:23.353
26
18.
Arthur Pic
Campos Racing
1:23.453
25
19
Adrian Quaife-Hobbs
Rapax
1:23.545
24
20.
Daniiel De Jong
MP Motorsport
1:23.605
23
21.
Facu Regalia
Hilmer Motorsport
1:23.821
25
22.
Tio Ellinas
MP Motorsport
1:24.126
22
23.
Takuya Izawa
ART Grand Prix
1:24.201
24
24.
Conor Daly
Venezuela GP Lazarus
1:25.356
17
25.
Artem Markelov
RT RUSSIAN TIME
1:25.694
23
26.
Nathanaël Berthon
Venezuela GP Lazarus
2