Renault Sport Academy stars Max Fewtrell and Christian Lundgaard each topped a collective test session as the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 series round at the Hockenheimring got underway on Friday.
The weekend also marks the final round of the season for the Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup competitors, and despite there only being four drivers in the class, the championship battle is between three of them, although one – Doureid Ghattas – seemingly has everything in his own hands.
Collective Test 1
Fewtrell set the bar with a time of 1:37.766 during the first fifty-minute session in Germany, with the R-ace GP racer ending 0.118 seconds clear of Chinese racer Yifei Ye of Josef Kaufmann Racing, while Lundgaard was third for MP Motorsport, a further 0.030 seconds behind.
Oscar Piastri ensured four different teams placed inside the top four, with the Arden Motorsport driver finishing 0.476 seconds off of Fewtrell, while R-ace GP duo Charles Milesi and Logan Sargeant rounded out the top six ahead of Fortec Motorsport’s Raul Guzman.
Another Renault-backed R-ace GP driver, Victor Martins, was eighth fastest ahead of Josef Kaufmann Racing’s Clement Novalak, while the top ten of the first session was rounded out by MP Motorsport’s Alex Peroni.
In the NEC battle, the first session saw R-ace GP’s Gabriel Gandulia set the fastest time of 1:39.454, the Argentine racer ending nineteenth fastest overall, while championship leader Ghattas of Anders Motorsport, who only needs to be a classified finisher in either of the two races this weekend to claim the title, was second in class, and twenty-third overall, just over four-tenths of a second back.
Phil Hill has switched teams for the finale, with the German now racing for ScoRace Team instead of Anders Motorsport, and he ended the first session down in twenty-eighth overall, ahead only of his team-mate Sharon Scolari, who was more than seven-seconds slower than the outright pace.
Collective Test 2
The second session took place with threatening skies overhead and ended with a rain shower, but before the rain could really come down, Lundgaard set the pace with a best time of 1:37.958, 0.132 seconds clear of Ye who was forced to settle for second once more.
JD Motorsport’s Lorenzo Colombo ended third, 0.204 seconds down, while Piastri placed fourth for a second time in the day ahead of Tech 1 Racing’s Alexander Smolyar and R-ace GP duo Sargeant and Milesi, while Peroni, Novalak and Martins completed the top ten.
Hill was fastest of the NEC runners in twentieth, with Gandulia twenty-second, Ghattas twenty-fourth and Scolari again well off the pace at the back of the field in twenty-ninth.
