| It was very sunny today at Jerez for the Friday morning forty-five minute Practice session of the tenth and penultimate round of the 2017 FIA Formula Two Championship which, unusually, is a stand-alone event as the F1 teams are in Japan. Pirelli are supplying their P Zero White medium and P Zero Yellow soft compound tyres for the fourth race weekend in succession following Hungary, Spa Francorchamps and Monza and for Practice the Racing Engineering drivers, Nyck De Vries and Gustav Malja, were using the medium compound as were all the other teams.
Both of the Racing Engineering drivers were immediately amongst the fastest runners with Gustav going 6th on his fourth lap with a time of 1:27.108 and then Nyck went 3rd, also on his fourth lap on 1:25.876. Almost immediately the red flag was shown, following an incident to Boschung, and all the cars returned to the pits with the session continuing after an eight minute delay. Both men immediately improved their times with Gustav setting a 1:26.800 for 13th and Nyck 1:25.735 to stay 3rd, Gustav then took a further four tenths off his times for a 1:26.336. With twenty minutes of the session gone both the Racing Engineering cars returned to the pits for setup adjustments and a fresh set of medium compound tyres, Gustav returned to the track with just over eleven minutes remaining and Nyck followed two minutes later. Gustav went faster again to set a 1:26.108 and move up to 11th while Nyck did not improve to finish the session in 3rd.
For the thirty-minute Qualifying session Nyck and Gustav were now using the P Zero Yellow soft compound tyres and Nyck, who was one of the first on track, immediately went fastest with a time of 1:25.711 but the times were quickly falling and his next flying lap was a 1:25.625 to lie 3rd. Gustav waited for eight minutes before he took to the track and his first quick lap was a 1:26.1 for the 9th fastest time so far and he took his pitstop for new tyres with eleven minutes of the session left.
Nyck returned to the pits after twelve minutes for some adjustments and a new set of the soft compound tyres returning to the track with fifteen minutes to go and he improved his time to 1:25.470 for 5th before returning to the pits with six minutes of the session still to go and he stayed there for the rest of the session. There were eight minutes remaining when Gustav started lapping again and he reduced his lap time to 1:25.916 to place 16th. A disappointing Qualifying for Racing Engineering with Nyck finishing 8th and unable to qualify at the front which he could have expected after this morning’s practice but he will be pushing hard tomorrow to score as many points as possible and to try and make it onto the podium. For Gustav his aim will be to climb into the points from 16th and get a good grid position for Sunday’s race. |
