Matsushita sweeps opening day of post-season test
ART Grand Prix driver Nobuharu Matsushita topped both sessions on Day 1 of GP2's post-season test at Yas Marina.
Photo by: GP2 Series Media Service
The Honda protege, teammate to champion Stoffel Vandoorne this season, came up less than two tenths short of Pierre Gasly's Abu Dhabi track record for the Dallara GP2/11 machine.
Matsushita was a tenth clear of DAMS driver Alex Lynn in the morning and then ended the day half a second in the lead.
During both sessions, the top 10 was locked out by drivers with previous GP2 experience - with F3 champion Felix Rosenqvist and GP3 runner-up Luca Ghiotto ending the day as top newcomers in 13th and 14th respectively.
In the morning, second-placed Lynn was followed by Norman Nato, representing his regular-season squad Arden, with Oliver Rowland edging his former Formula Renault 2.0 title rival Gasly for fourth place.
Nicholas Latifi, testing with DAMS, led much of the afternoon but eventually finished second to Matsushita, while Prema's Gasly, ART's Rowland and Russian Time's Artem Markelov made up the top 10.
DTM champion Pascal Wehrlein, making his GP2 test debut, completed both sessions in 18th.
Combined timesheets
Pos. | Driver | Team | AM | PM |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Nobuharu Matsushita | ART Grand Prix | 1:49.180 | 1:47.903 |
2 | Nicholas Latifi | DAMS | 1:49.792 | 1:48.418 |
3 | Pierre Gasly | Prema Racing | 1:49.508 | 1:48.437 |
4 | Oliver Rowland | ART Grand Prix | 1:49.501 | 1:48.454 |
5 | Artem Markelov | Russian Time | 1:50.543 | 1:48.581 |
6 | Nick Yelloly | MP Motorsport | 1:50.067 | 1:48.744 |
7 | Norman Nato | Arden International | 1:49.479 | 1:48.780 |
8 | Richie Stanaway | Carlin | 1:49.837 | 1:48.791 |
9 | Dean Stoneman | Carlin | 1:50.244 | 1:48.865 |
10 | Andre Negrao | Rapax | 1:49.821 | 1:48.875 |
11 | Jordan King | Racing Engineering | 1:50.078 | 1:48.943 |
12 | Tio Ellinas | Russian Time | 1:49.816 | 1:48.997 |
13 | Felix Rosenqvist | Status Grand Prix | 1:50.264 | 1:49.165 |
14 | Luca Ghiotto | Trident | 1:50.429 | 1:49.213 |
15 | Sergey Sirotkin | Racing Engineering | 1:50.200 | 1:49.223 |
16 | Alex Lynn | DAMS | 1:49.304 | 1:52.515 |
17 | Gustav Malja | Arden International | 1:51.032 | 1:49.423 |
18 | Alex Fontana | Rapax | 1:51.309 | 1:49.747 |
19 | Pascal Wehrlein | Prema Racing | 1:51.022 | 1:50.030 |
20 | Jimmy Eriksson | Trident | 1:50.739 | 1:50.110 |
21 | Sean Gelael | Campos Racing | 1:52.340 | 1:50.491 |
22 | Richard Gonda | MP Motorsport | 1:51.745 | 1:50.536 |
23 | Konstantin Tereshchenko | Campos Racing | 1:51.257 | 1:51.607 |
24 | Patric Armand | Status Grand Prix | 1:54.167 | 1:51.558 |
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