Sepang GP2: Gasly leads dominant Prema 1-2 in practice

Prema duo Pierre Gasly and Antonio Giovinazzi locked out the top two positions in GP2 practice for the championship's first visit to Sepang since 2013.

Red Bull junior Gasly set his benchmark of 1m42.352s before the mid-session pitstops, as he failed to improve in the late stages, running wide at Turn 9.

His teammate Giovinazzi managed to lower his own fastest time with just a couple of minutes left, but fell one tenth short Gasly.

Russian Time's Raffaele Marciello took third, half a second off the pace, beating Racing Engineering driver Jordan King by just two thousandths.

The Briton's teammate Norman Nato took fifth while Oliver Rowland and Artem Markelov were separated by just 0.005s in sixth and seventh respectively.

ART's Nobuharu Matsushita was eighth, ahead of Luca Ghiotto and Alex Lynn.

GP2 veteran Johnny Cecotto, who is standing in for Arthur Pic this weekend, 2.3s off the pace in last place.

Practice results

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap	Interval	Mph
1	21	Pierre Gasly	Prema Powerteam	12	1'42.352			194.962
2	20	Antonio Giovinazzi	Prema Powerteam	13	1'42.475	0.123	0.123	194.728
3	9	Raffaele Marciello	RUSSIAN TIME	13	1'42.894	0.542	0.419	193.935
4	4	Jordan King	Racing Engineering	13	1'42.896	0.544	0.002	193.931
5	3	Norman Nato	Racing Engineering	13	1'42.933	0.581	0.037	193.862
6	22	Oliver Rowland	MP Motorsport	14	1'43.130	0.778	0.197	193.491
7	10	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	13	1'43.135	0.783	0.005	193.482
8	1	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	13	1'43.204	0.852	0.069	193.352
9	15	Luca Ghiotto	Trident	13	1'43.212	0.860	0.008	193.337
10	5	Alex Lynn	DAMS	13	1'43.450	1.098	0.238	192.893
11	7	Mitch Evans	Campos Racing	13	1'43.578	1.226	0.128	192.654
12	2	Sergey Sirotkin	ART Grand Prix	9	1'43.857	1.505	0.279	192.137
13	18	Sergio Canamasas	Carlin	12	1'43.876	1.524	0.019	192.102
14	6	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	14	1'43.928	1.576	0.052	192.006
15	19	Marvin Kirchhofer	Carlin	13	1'44.161	1.809	0.233	191.576
16	11	Gustav Malja	Rapax	14	1'44.195	1.843	0.034	191.513
17	8	Sean Gelael	Campos Racing	14	1'44.215	1.863	0.020	191.477
18	24	Nabil Jeffri	Arden International	13	1'44.232	1.880	0.017	191.446
19	23	Daniel de Jong	MP Motorsport	13	1'44.381	2.029	0.149	191.172
20	14	Philo Paz Armand	Trident	13	1'44.384	2.032	0.003	191.167
21	12	Johnny Cecotto	Rapax	12	1'44.687	2.335	0.303	190.613