GP2 Spain Practice and qualifying

Practice

Glorious Spanish sunshine and warmth greeted the GP2 Series back in Europe for the second round of the 2014 campaign.

Jolyon Palmer led his team mate Stéphane Richelmi and René Binder out onto the track for the first European session of the year. The obligatory sighting laps got the timing screens lit up early on until Palmer lit them up purple with a time of 1:30.798 which he would later better.

The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya was extremely dirty and dusty despite having just been used by the Formula One cars. Richelmi had a little slipped wide at the last corner just as Julián Leal had a snap of oversteer through the difficult turn three.

Tom Dillmann, on his return, managed to get his Arden International car up into the top ten and just one second off the pace. Sergio Canamasas, also on his GP2 return, slotted in just behind Dillmann in P10. Tio Ellinas' first GP2 session ended in 16th place.
Conor Daly's session ended early with an apparent technical problem and the American only had seven laps under his belt.

Very few changes were made to the order in the final few minutes but Johnny Cecotto provided a little bit of excitement by suffering a spectacular spin at turn seven.
Jolyon Palmer topped the session with a lap time of 1:30.448.

Top six positions

1 J. Palmer DAMS 1:30.448
2 F. Nasr Carlin 1:30.651 0.203
3 S. Richelmi DAMS 1:30.652 0.204
4 M. Evans RT RUSSIAN TIME 1:30.892 0.444
5 D. De Jong MP Motorsport 1:30.951 0.503
6 S. Vandoorne ART Grand Prix 1:31.460 1.012

Qualifying

Jolyon Palmer set the pace in Practice at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya this morning and his pace looked set to give him pole position in Qualifying too.

Alexander Rossi led the entire field out onto the track as the green light at the end of the pit lane illuminated. René Binder didn't get out on his first try as the Arden driver stalled his car. The ART Grand Prix drivers came straight back into the pits having just completed a sighting lap.

After the first run of laps it was Stéphane Richelmi who set the pace ahead of Jolyon Palmer, Felipe Nasr, Mitch Evans and Alexander Rossi. Artem Markelov disrupted Rossi's lap but it didn't cost the American too much lap time.

Just before the midpoint of the session, Stoffel Vandoorne and Takuya Izawa went on to the emptying track to try their hand without any disruption from their competitors. Izawa only managed to reach P21 while Vandoorne rocketed up to P6.

With nine minutes to go the track started filling up again and numerous changes occurred inside the top ten. Conor Daly was looking to improve his last place on the grid but he came across a slow moving Tom Dillmann at turn four which disrupted the American driver's lap which was clear to see as Daly gesticulated.

On his GP2 Series debut, Tio Ellinas set a time worthy of P8 on the Feature Race grid and Raffaele Marciello went one better with a P4 start for tomorrow's race.

Stéphane Richelmi's lap time of 1:29.293 from the early stages of the session went unbeaten by everyone which guaranteed the Monegasque his first pole position of the season.

Position

1 S. Richelmi DAMS 1:29.293
2 J. Palmer DAMS 1:29.421
3 S. Coletti Racing Engineering 1:29.514
4 R. Marciello Racing Engineering 1:29.650
5 F. Nasr Carlin 1:29.698
6 M. Evans RT RUSSIAN TIME 1:29.703
7 J. Leal Carlin 1:29.841
8 A. Rossi EQ8 Caterham Racing 1:29.893
9 T. Ellinas MP Motorsport 1:29.902
10 S. Vandoorne ART Grand Prix 1:29.963
11 R. Haryanto EQ8 Caterham Racing 1:29.983
12 T. Dillmann Arden International 1:30.289
13 A. Pic Campos Racing 1:30.300
14 D. Abt Hilmer Motorsport 1:30.412
15 N. Berthon Venezuela GP Lazarus 1:30.470
16 J. Cecotto Trident 1:30.496
17 K. Sato Campos Racing 1:30.510
18 R. Binder Arden International 1:30.553
19 D. De Jong MP Motorsport 1:30.617
20 S. Canamasas Trident 1:30.737
21 F. Regalia Hilmer Motorsport 1:30.790
22 A. Quaife-Hobbs Rapax 1:30.884
23 T. Izawa ART Grand Prix 1:30.903
24 S. Trummer Rapax 1:30.923
25 A. Markelov RT RUSSIAN TIME 1:31.336
26 C. Daly Venezuela GP Lazarus 1:31.558

Callum Rowe
Editor & Sole Contributor, Callum Rowe’s GP2

laser cut circuits kindly provided by www.grahamandleigh.co.uk