Evans Dominates First Day Of GP3 Testing At Barcelona

Mitch Evans on track at the Circuit de Catalunya - Photo Credit: Drew Gibson/GP3 Series Media Service

GP3 Series racer Mitch Evans dominated the head of the timesheets on the first day of post-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya.

The New Zealander was quickest in both the morning and afternoon for his team MW Arden, at a circuit where he won back in May.

The start to the day's running was delayed by 30 minutes due to thick fog, and when the morning session did get underway it did so on a damp circuit. Evans' time was set in the closing minutes of the session, once the track had dried out.

He was 0.367 seconds quicker than second placed Kevin Korjus, the multiple Formula Renault 3.5 race winner making his debut in the series with Tech 1 Racing. British F3 regular Carlos Huertas was third fastest for Carlin, ahead of Formula Renault UK frontrunner Tio Ellinas with Arden. Ferrari protégé Brendon Maisano was fifth for Jenzer Motorsport.

Evans was in control for the majority of the afternoon session, improving his morning benchmark by six tenths of a second to record a best time of 1:39.037. Matias Laine ended up second fastest, more than half a second adrift for Manor. Huertas and Ellinas were third and fourth again, with F3 Euro Series driver Daniel Abt fifth for ART.

Korjus was sixth ahead of Tech 1 teammate Miki Weckstrom, the Atech CRS duo of Tamas Pal Kiss and Nick Yelloly, and Italian F3 driver Edoardo Liberati in the third Arden car.

British Formula Ford champion Scott Malvern ended the two sessions in 21^st and 19^th respectively for Status Grand Prix, while Superstars race winner Michela Cerruti was 18^th in the morning for Addax before propping up the timesheets in the afternoon.

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