24/03/2010
NEWS STORY
Pastor Maldonado was again quickest on the second day of the GP2 Series collective tests at le Castellet in the South of France. On the 2A configuration track, the Venezuelan clocked a best time of 1:09.769, one tenth quicker than Dani Clos who led the field most of the day.
The trouble-free morning session started under clear blue skies and saw Clos (Racing Engineering) shine and top the timesheets with a 1:10.288 ahead of yesterday's [ace-setter Maldonado, while rookies Jules Bianchi and Sam Bird confirmed ART's good form finishing third and fourth respectively. Christian Vietoris placed the second Racing Engineering car in the top five, four hundredths faster than Arden's Charles Pic.
In the afternoon, with twenty 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 in less than 1:10s.
Already in the top ten this morning, Super Nova's rookie Josef Kral finished with the third best performance of the day ahead of iSport's Oliver Turvey and GP2 returnee Ho-Pin Tung (DAMS). The French squad put both their cars in the top ten along with Rapax, iSport, and ART.
Marcus Ericsson lost control of his Super Nova car at the pit exit at the beginning of the afternoon session and consequently did not complete any laps.