The Carlin cars picked up from were testing left them; consistent and on top of the timesheets. After an intense squabble amongst themselves, it was James Pull who came out on top at the end of MSA Formula‘s second practice, two hundreths ahead of Max Fewtrell.
The first session ended with Fewtrell on top with a time of 46.176 seconds. He’d not featured much at the start, but broke into the top five as the track warmed up. Later proving to be the man to beat as the track action died down.
Improvements from Pull and Sennan Fielding pushed the Carlin driver down after the short red flag period caused by Petru Florescu, but a late gasp saw Fewtrell lead the opening session by 0.065 seconds. Nothing much would change in the second as Fewtrell was once again the driver at the front with everyone on track.
However; improvements from the #1 Carlin driver Devlin DeFrancesco saw him become the first man to break into the 45 second range, leading by a comparitevely large gap compared to the rest of the field; 0.062 seconds.
The session was interupted by another red flag as Frank Bird was forced to abandon his car. Though late improvements from Pull and Fewtrell pushed their team mate down as the rest of the grid were left to play catch up.
Fielding was one of the first to set a lap time in the morning test, managing to stay inside the top three for the first half of the first session at Brands Hatch. He eventually improved to finish second quickest, but an off on the final lap didn’t help his confidence, he dropped to tenth overall in the afternoon, but remains a real threat to the Carlins.
Zane Goddard and rookie Alex Quinn improved late on in the second session, however had been off the pace all day, only putting a few shock laps in right at the dead. They may drop back for qualifying, but have proven that the one lap is there.
The top six in the afternoon session was rounded out by Rafa Martins. While the Brazilian may have fallen back, he was the only driver to be on par with the Carlins during the middle part of the session and will likely remain a threat going into qualifying tomorrow.
Elsewhere, rookies Ross Martin and Ayrton Simmons managed fourth and fifth in the morning tests but struggled going into the afternoon. Sadly for Simmons, he won’t feature for any more of the weekend as he remains too young to make a competitive debut. After a quietly productive first session, Harry Hayek was notably absent from the afternoon test as the competitors looked to get valuable track time in place.
