Kush Maini continued Campos Racing’s strong third day of Formula 2 pre-season testing at Bahrain, by topping the final pre-season session
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Thursday evening’s session returned to the usual format of two & a half hours running time, with Ralph Boschung topping the day’s earlier session having run 45 minutes shorter.
Van Amersfoort Racing’s Richard Verschoor set a benchmark lap before ART Grand Prix’s Theo Pourchaire came through to set a 1m42.923s. He later improved by a hundredth of a second 16 minutes into the session.
Initially, Verschoor was 2.849s off Pourchaire’s pace, having improved by two-tenths at the 22-minute mark. He remained in second place until Trident’s Clement Novalak set a 1m43.524s towards the end of the first half-hour.
Novalak set a blistering lap to get within 0.257s of Pourchaire after 48 minutes had passed.
There was little action until the second hour of the evening session began. Roy Nissany went fourth fastest straight away, as his team-mate Brad Benavides slotted into third.
MP Motorsport were the only team yet to record any lap times, but sent out Dennis Hauger as the session went into its second half.
With DAMS’ Arthur Leclerc unable to get back to the pits, double waved yellow flags at turn eight meant both Dennis Hauger & Jehan Daruvala were denied an opportunity to set flying laps as soon as they left the pits.
Action resumed after only a short break, with Nissany topping the timesheet with just under an hour left on the clock, setting a 1m42.905s lap to move 0.008s ahead of Pourchaire.
Hauger and Daruvala finally showed their pace as they went fifth and sixth fastest. Carlin’s Enzo Fittipaldi (who had not yet lapped at a representative pace) and Zane Maloney improved to fourth and sixth place respectively meaning Hauger & Daruvala moved down the order moments later.
With activity on track, Benavides went on to set a 1m43.226s to go fourth fastest, but then Hauger went 0.011s faster, to take the position as Daruvala returned to sixth place.
Fittipaldi then broke into the 1m42s, just 0.066s off top spot, snatching third place on the timesheet and his team-mate in his wake improved to take fourth position.
A further red flag period followed, this time Trident’s Roman Stanek being the culprit/victim. The session later restarted again leaving just 24 minutes left on the clock.
Maini, from outside the top 10, went fastest by 0.282s with nine minutes remaining.
Daruvala improved in ninth two minutes later. Hauger later returned to the top five in the latter minutes before he and much of the field returned to the pit lane.
Image: Formula Motorsport Limited
