Harvey fastest on day one of British F3 Rockingham test

Jack Harvey topped the first of a two-day British Formula 3 test session at Rockingham yesterday.

Fronting an all-Carlin top-five, the 18-year-old laid down his marker – 1:17.022 – during a relatively lengthy stint toward the end of the day, giving Harvey a three-tenths gap over the following group.

Harvey set three separate times that would have given him the top spot, as he completed an impressive 72 laps throughout the day, further bedding himself in with the new Dallara F312.

“It was a very productive day. The car felt good all day, we made a few tweaks, put some new tyres on towards the end and it all came together. However, we will have to keep working hard tomorrow to try to create an even bigger gap.”

Ending the day was a rather close-knit pack headed by Harry Tincknell. The ex-Fortec racer enjoyed his quickest run at the very tail end of the day, pipping Carlos Sainz Jr (3rd) and Jazeman Jaafar (4th) by three-hundredths.
Jaafar’s quickest – a 1:17.347 – helped him to top at lunchtime; however the Malaysian got to within hundredths of repeating this feat during the afternoon running. Pietro Fantin claimed the 5th as the day drew to a close.
It was the continuation of a productive week for Sainz Jr, who tested a GP3 car at Barcelona for Lotus on Monday.

From there, gaps grew with leading Fortec runner, Alex Lynn 6th, half-a-second shy of the top spot. A further half-a-second split Lynn and teammate Felix Serralles in 7th, while Hannes van Asseldonk (8th) and Pipo Derani (9th) brought up the Fortec rear.

T-Sport’s Nick McBride finally got his hands on a Nissan-powered Dallara F312 today. McBride completed a shakedown run, as well as a series of short stints, falling just shy of Derani in the time sheets, but well ahead of the Rookie Class pairing Spike Goddard (T-Sport, 11th) and Duvashen Padayachee (Double R, 12th).

Pos  Driver                Team/Car         Time       Gap      Laps
 1.  Jack Harvey           Carlin-VW        1m17.022s           72
 2.  Harry Tincknell       Carlin-VW        1m17.319s  +0.297s  69
 3.  Carlos Sainz Jr       Carlin-VW        1m17.322s  +0.300s  64
 4.  Jazeman Jaafar        Carlin-VW        1m17.347s  +0.325s  44
 5.  Pietro Fantin         Carlin-VW        1m17.423s  +0.401s  72
 6.  Alex Lynn             Fortec-Merc      1m17.559s  +0.537s  63
 7.  Felix Serralles       Fortec-Merc      1m18.122s  +1.100s  59
 8.  Hannes van Asseldonk  Fortec-Merc      1m18.251s  +1.229s  54
 9.  Pipo Derani           Fortec-Merc      1m18.341s  +1.319s  65
10.  Nick McBride          T-Sport-Nissan   1m18.560s  +1.538s  68
11.  Spike Goddard         T-Sport-Mugen*   1m20.084s  +3.062s  73
12.  Duvashen Padayachee   Double R-Mugen*  1m21.507s  +4.485s  86
*= National Class

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