British driver Jon Lancaster topped the final day of the last pre-season test at the Bahrain International Circuit in his MP Motorsport machine; his lap in the morning of 1:39.647s was 0.046s faster than the EQ8 Caterham Racing car of Alexander Rossi. Brazilian Felipe Nasr, who is the Williams F1 reserve driver in 2014, completed the top three for Carlin.
Another F1 reserve driver, Stoffel Vandoorne, finished fourth for ART Grand Prix. The McLaren junior driver finished just ahead of Hilmer Motorsport’s Daniel Abt and DAMS driver Jolyon Palmer. The second Carlin entry of Julian Leal was seventh, with Raffaele Marciello (Racing Engineering), Mitch Evans (Russian Time) and Rio Haryanto (EQ8 Caterham Racing) completing the top ten.
The other two drivers along with Lancaster still unconfirmed for the 2014 GP2 series season, Conor Daly and Axcil Jefferies, finished 25th and 26th respectively for Venezuela GP Lazarus and Trident Racing. Jefferies had taken over the car that had been driven the previous two days by the 2013 Auto GP champion Vittorio Ghirelli.
Teams and drivers were carrying out longer runs during the day to see how their cars run with full loads of fuel.
Lancaster is hopeful that a deal can be struck with MP for the forthcoming season, and topping the times for a second time (after finishing on top on day three in Abu Dhabi last week) can only benefit the twenty-five year old from Leeds.
“As for the full year, it is not confirmed yet and we have not signed anything,” said Lancaster to Autosport after the Abu Dhabi test last week. “We both want it to happen, but we’re still working on the financial thing at the moment. Putting in good performances can only help make it come together.”
The next time the GP2 cars will be on track will be for the first round of the season at the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain. It will be interesting to see how the first race weekend of the tenth season of GP2 shapes out.
Bahrain Day 3 Pre-season Test Times
| POS | DRIVER | NAT | TEAM | TIME |
| 1 | Jon Lancaster | GBR | MP Motorsport | 1:39.647 |
| 2 | Alexander Rossi | USA | EQ8 Caterham Racing | 1:39.693 |
| 3 | Felipe Nasr | BRZ | Carlin | 1:39.829 |
| 4 | Stoffel Vandoorne | BEL | ART Grand Prix | 1:39.920 |
| 5 | Daniel Abt | GER | Hilmer Motorsport | 1:39.931 |
| 6 | Jolyon Palmer | GBR | DAMS | 1:40.003 |
| 7 | Julian Leal | COL | Carlin | 1:40.031 |
| 8 | Raffaele Marciello | ITA | Racing Engineering | 1:40.157 |
| 9 | Mitch Evans | NZL | Russian Time | 1:40.233 |
| 10 | Rio Haryanto | INO | EQ8 Caterham Racing | 1:40.377 |
| 11 | Stéphane Richelmi | MON | DAMS | 1:40.397 |
| 12 | Facu Regalia | ARG | Hilmer Motorsport | 1:40.446 |
| 13 | Simon Trummer | SWI | Rapax | 1:40.474 |
| 14 | Nathanael Berthon | FRA | Venezuela GP Lazarus | 1:40.511 |
| 15 | Stefano Coletti | MON | Racing Engineering | 1:40.529 |
| 16 | Rene Binder | AUT | Arden International | 1:40.550 |
| 17 | Kimiya Sato | JAP | Campos Racing | 1:40.659 |
| 18 | Daniel De Jong | NED | MP Motorsport | 1:40.668 |
| 19 | Adrian Quaife-Hobbs | GBR | Rapax | 1:40.743 |
| 20 | André Negrao | BRZ | Arden International | 1:40.956 |
| 21 | Takuya Izawa | JAP | ART Grand Prix | 1:41.019 |
| 22 | Arthur Pic | FRA | Campos Racing | 1:41.054 |
| 23 | Artem Markelov | RUS | Russian Time | 1:41.131 |
| 24 | Johnny Cecotto | VEN | Trident Racing | 1:41.290 |
| 25 | Conor Daly | USA | Venezuela GP Lazarus | 1:41.766 |
| 26 | Axcil Jefferies | ZIM | Trident Racing | 1:42.670 |
