On only his second day in an Auto GP World Series car, Belgian driver Sam DeJonghe topped the timing screens at the pre-season test in Valencia. For the second day running, the circuit’s lap record for an Auto GP car was broken, with Virtuosi UK driver DeJonghe’s time of 1:20.741s ultimately ending the day on top.
Only one other driver managed to lap the track in under 1:21s, with Super Nova driver Markus Pommer ending less than six hundredths of a second behind DeJonghe. The German is hoping to return to single seaters in 2014 after racing in the Porsche Supercup in 2013.
Day one pacesetter Tamas Pal Kiss was third fastest on day two in his Zele Racing machine, just ahead of the second Virtuosi UK car of Andrea Roda. Roda finished less than two hundredths of a second faster than fellow Italian Kevin Giovesi in the Puma 3 M-Sport car.
Kimiya Sato ran in the morning session before heading to Bahrain for his GP2 Series debut, and finished sixth fastest before handing the car over to countryman Yoshitaka Koruda for the afternoon session; Koruda ended up twelfth. Seventh fastest was Canadian series rookie Gianmarco Raimondo in the second Super Nova machine, just ahead of the third of Michela Cerruti.
The top ten was rounded out by young Italian Loris Spinelli in the second Puma 3 M-Sport car and by Slovakian Richard Gonda in the third Virtuosi machine.
The Auto GP World Series season begins April 12th-13th on the streets of Marrakech in Morocco.
Valencia Day 2 Pre-Season Test Times
POS | DRIVER | NAT | TEAM | TIME |
1 | Sam DeJonghe | BEL | Virtuosi UK | 1:20.741 |
2 | Markus Pommer | GER | Super Nova | 1:20.797 |
3 | Tamas Pal Kiss | HUN | Zele Racing | 1:21.253 |
4 | Andrea Roda | ITA | Virtuosi UK | 1:21.414 |
5 | Kevin Giovesi | ITA | Puma 3 M-Sport | 1:21.432 |
6 | Kimiya Sato | JAP | MLR 71 by Euronova | 1:21.581 |
7 | Gianmarco Raimondo | CAN | Super Nova | 1:21.663 |
8 | Michela Cerruti | ITA | Super Nova | 1:21.686 |
9 | Loris Spinelli | ITA | Puma 3 M-Sport | 1:22.276 |
10 | Richard Gonda | SVK | Virtuosi UK | 1:22.605 |
11 | Giuseppe Cipriani | ITA | Ibiza Racing | 1:22.743 |
12 | Yoshitaka Koruda | JAP | MLR 71 by Euronova | 1:23.480 |
13 | Salvatore de Plano | ITA | MLR 71 by Euronova | 1:23.928 |
14 | Michele La Rosa | ITA | MLR 71 by Euronova | 1:23.992 |