Malaysian driver Jazeman Jaafar topped the first day of the Jerez pre-season test for his new team ISR. The 21-year-old from Kuala Lumpur set his best time of 1:26.840s during the morning session, and ended up 0.146s faster than the Fortec Motorsport machine of Briton Oliver Rowland.
“We made a pretty strong start to the day,” admitted Jaafar on the official Renault Sport website. “I was happy with the set-up, so we very quickly shifted our focus to development of the car. Performance could still be improved, but I was fairly pleased.”
“This morning, we didn’t really work on performance; we concentrated on starts and pit-stop practices,” said second placed Oliver Rowland. “In the afternoon, I set the best time but I went off on my last lap. The potential is much greater than the times would suggest. We should be lapping somewhere around one minute twenty-five seconds tomorrow.”
Another Brit finished third; Will Stevens in his Strakka Racing car becoming the third and final driver to dip under 1:27s for his lap. Lotus’ driver from the Philippines Marlon Stockinger was fourth, just ahead of Carlos Sainz Jr, who had been fastest in the previous test in Aragon last month for DAMS. Stockinger and Sainz were split by the smallest margin of 0.001s.
The second Fortec car of Russian teenager Sergey Sirotkin finished sixth, 0.002s faster than the second Strakka Racing car of Matias Lainé. The leading rookie driver was Lotus’ Matthieu Vaxiviere in eighth, just ahead of sophomore driver Norman Nato for DAMS. The leading driver yet to be confirmed to a driver was Dutchman Nigel Melker in the second ISR car.
Twenty-three drivers set times during the day, with 2.275s covering Jaafar in first and Robert Visoiu in 23rd. The Romanian only ran five laps in the afternoon session, and will be hoping for more running on day two before he hands his car over to Cypriot Tio Ellinas for the final day on Wednesday.
Day two of the test at the Circuito de Jerez begins tomorrow morning.
Jerez Day 1 Pre-Season Test Times
| POS | DRIVER | NAT | TEAM | TIME |
| 1 | Jazeman Jaafar | MAL | ISR | 1:26.840 |
| 2 | Oliver Rowland | GBR | Fortec Motorsports | 1:26.986 |
| 3 | Will Stevens | GBR | Strakka Racing | 1:26.998 |
| 4 | Marlon Stockinger | PHI | Lotus | 1:27.002 |
| 5 | Carlos Sainz Jr | ESP | DAMS | 1:27.003 |
| 6 | Sergey Sirotkin | RUS | Fortec Motorsports | 1:27.025 |
| 7 | Matias Laine | FIN | Strakka Racing | 1:27.027 |
| 8 | Matthieu Vaxiviere | FRA | Lotus | 1:27.051 |
| 9 | Norman Nato | FRA | DAMS | 1:27.079 |
| 10 | Nigel Melker | NED | ISR | 1:27.186 |
| 11 | Nikolay Martsenko | RUS | Comtec Racing | 1:27.281 |
| 12 | Pierre Gasly | FRA | Arden Motorsport | 1:27.313 |
| 13 | Luca Ghiotto | ITA | International Draco Racing | 1:27.340 |
| 14 | Pietro Fantin | BRZ | International Draco Racing | 1:27.391 |
| 15 | Roberto Merhi | ESP | Zeta Corse | 1:27.655 |
| 16 | Marco Sorensen | DEN | Tech 1 Racing | 1:27.656 |
| 17 | Tio Ellinas | CYP | Tech 1 Racing | 1:27.670 |
| 18 | William Buller | GBR | Arden Motorsport | 1:27.729 |
| 19 | Meindert van Buuren | NED | Pons Racing | 1:27.881 |
| 20 | Zoel Amberg | SWI | AVF | 1:27.918 |
| 21 | Beitske Visser | NED | AVF | 1:28.605 |
| 22 | Roman Mavlanov | RUS | Zeta Corse | 1:28.873 |
| 23 | Robert Visoiu | ROM | Pons Racing | 1:29.115 |
