Columbian Carlos Huertas set the fastest time of the day at Oulton Park ahead of the next few rounds of the 2011 British Formula 3 championship.
The Carlin driver headed a top 10 that was covered by just over half a second, as the F3 circus prepared for Rounds 4-6 of the season at the Cheshire circuit. Huertas set his quickest time under sunny conditions in the morning ahead of Australia’s Scott Pye and Menasheh Idafar respectively – the cooler temperatures in the morning aided their times, as track temperature rocketed to 42 degrees Celsius in the afternoon.
T-Sport’s 2010 British F3 National Champion, Menasheh Idafar was delighted with his pace: “It's been a great start to the weekend, it's a fantastic feeling to be third fastest but there's a lot of hard work ahead”, he said, “You always want to be quick in testing but it'll be in qualifying tomorrow and the races where it really matters. We're happy with how things have gone so far.”
Rupert Svendsen-Cook was 4th fastest overall, ahead of fellow Carlin team-mates Kevin Magnussen and championship leader Felipe Nasr – the trio separated by merely 3/100ths of a second. Fortec’s Lucas Foresti was 7th, Jazeman Jaafar 8th, with Pietro Fantin and Harry Tincknell rounding out a highly competitive top 10. In the rookie class, T-Sport’s Bart Hylkema thoroughly out-paced rookie rival Kotaro Sakurai by over 2 seconds.
Qualifying for the second event of the 2011 Cooper Tires British F3 International Series season will take place at 10.45 tomorrow, Saturday, 23rd April, with round four following at 15.10. There is to be no track action at Oulton Park on Sunday, 24th April, so the racing will resume on Monday, 25th April, with rounds five and six taking place at 10.00 and 14.35 respectively.
Full Results:
Cooper Tires British Formula 3 International Series
Official testing, Oulton Park / 22/4/2011
Leading times am / pm
Championship class
1 Carlos HUERTAS / COL, Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen 1m 29.238s / 1m 29.459s
2 Scott PYE / AUS, Double R Dallara-Mercedes 1m 29.334s / 1m 29.902s
3 Menasheh IDAFAR / GBR, T-Sport Dallara-Volkswagen 1m 29.355s / 1m 29.761s
4 Rupert SVENDSEN-COOK / GBR, Carlin Dallara-VW 1m 29.671s / 1m 29.510s
5 Kevin MAGNUSSEN / DEN, Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen 1m 29.842s / 1m 29.517s
6 Felipe NASR / BRA, Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen 1m 29.649s / 1m 29.531s
7 Lucas FORESTI / BRA, Fortec Dallara-Mercedes 1m 29.765s / 1m 29.686s
8 Jazeman JAAFAR / MAS, Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen 1m 29.744s / 1m 29.988s
9 Pietro FANTIN / BRA, Hitech Dallara-Volkswagen 1m 29.903s / 1m 29.749s
10 Harry TINCKNELL / GBR, Fortec Dallara-Mercedes 1m 29.837s / 1m 29.757s etc
Rookie class
1 Bart HYLKEMA / NED, T-Sport Dallara-Mugen Honda 1m 31.836s / 1m 31.858s
2 Kotaro SAKURAI / JPN, Hitech Dallara-Mugen Honda no time / 1m 33.966s
Full TSL timesheets:
