The cold, overcast, misty day didn’t stop Dan Ticktum showing he is the man to beat as the final collective MSA Formula test day took to the banking of Rockingham.
What is now his third fastest test session following barn-stormers at Snetterton and Silverstone, the Fortec Motorsport driver was three-tenths of a second faster than the chasing pack following the day’s two three hour test sessions.
That said, the top ten on the combined standings were only covered by one-second with Ticktum leading the way with 1:18.062 compared to Colton Herta’s 1:18.316 in the Ford EcoBoost powered Carlin.
Just five-hundredths further back was Herta’s Carlin team mate Lando Norris who himself was only eight-hundredths ahead of Double R’s Matheus Leist.
Leist was followed by JTR’s James Pull in fifth place and then came the fastest of the morning session – Ricky Collard who set a time of 1:18.532. Also in the top ten due to the merits of his morning session was Sennan Fielding.
Collard Headed The Morning Running With Arden – Credit: AS Autosport Photography
In eighth place was the biggest improver between the two sessions – Dan Baybutt – who jumped from a 1:20.187 in the morning to a 1:18.909 in the afternoon session.
Rounding out the top ten was Alex Gill in the second Fortec car and Sandy Mitchell in the Arden, both still very close to the rest of top ten showing that, when the whole grid meets up again at Brands Hatch, the result definitely won’t be easy to call.
Indeed, most of the running was also incident free – there were a handful of stoppages in the afternoon session but on the most part teams up and down the paddock could put the Mygale chassis through its paces.
For full times of the day’s testing, click here.
