By alley - Oct 17, 2014, 6:15 AM ET

FR3.5: Vaxiviere sets Jerez practice pace

Matthieu Vaxiviere set the pace during Formula Renault 3.5 free practice at Jerez, as high temperatures in the afternoon prevented anyone from beating his morning benchmark. The Lotus driver led the way in the cooler first session, heading Will Buller by nearly two tenths of a second.

Of the championship's regular frontrunners Pierre Gasly had the best day, setting the fourth-fastest time in the morning and topping the afternoon session on new tires. But despite Gasly chipping away at his best effort in the final 15 minutes of the day's running, his afternoon time of 1m29.652s was more than half a second adrift of Vaxiviere's lap from earlier in the day.

Gasly was joined at the front during the qualifying simulation runs by championship leader Carlos Sainz Jr., who only needs to finish seventh in race one on Saturday to secure the title.

Sainz's only remaining title rival, Roberto Merhi, was one of the drivers who did manage to improve his time during the afternoon, but that was only enough to put him 19th in the session, after he had propped up the field during first practice.

The lack of pace on the track by the end of the day meant that the second session did not feature its usual flurry of activity on the timing screens, as by the time the checkered flag came out only 11 of the 21 cars were still circulating.

Practice 1:

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Matthieu Vaxiviere	Lotus	1m 28.823s	-	20
2	William Buller	Arden Motorsport	1m 29.018s	0.195s	18
3	Matias Laine	Strakka Racing	1m 29.109s	0.286s	18
4	Pierre Gasly	Arden Motorsport	1m 29.142s	0.319s	21
5	Sergey Sirotkin	Fortec Motorsports	1m 29.282s	0.459s	22
6	Pietro Fantin	International Draco Racing	1m 29.282s	0.459s	20
7	Meindert van Buuren	Pons Racing	1m 29.295s	0.472s	17
8	Marlon Stockinger	Lotus	1m 29.306s	0.483s	19
9	Carlos Sainz Jr.	DAMS	1m 29.466s	0.643s	20
10	Oliver Rowland	Fortec Motorsports	1m 29.635s	0.812s	22
11	Nicholas Latifi	Tech 1 Racing	1m 29.717s	0.894s	19
12	Norman Nato	DAMS	1m 29.771s	0.948s	21
13	Jazeman Jaafar	ISR	1m 29.810s	0.987s	17
14	Will Stevens	Strakka Racing	1m 29.968s	1.145s	20
15	Beitske Visser	AVF	1m 29.969s	1.146s	22
16	Marco Sorensen	Tech 1 Racing	1m 30.028s	1.205s	18
17	Luca Ghiotto	International Draco Racing	1m 30.074s	1.251s	21
18	Zoel Amberg	AVF	1m 30.215s	1.392s	20
19	Oscar Tunjo	Pons Racing	1m 30.499s	1.676s	18
20	Roman Mavlanov	Zeta Corse	1m 30.847s	2.024s	20
21	Roberto Merhi	Zeta Corse	1m 31.377s	2.554s	15

Practice 2

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Pierre Gasly	Arden Motorsport	1m 29.652s	-	20
2	Carlos Sainz Jr.	DAMS	1m 29.673s	0.021s	21
3	Jazeman Jaafar	ISR	1m 29.978s	0.326s	19
4	Will Stevens	Strakka Racing	1m 30.046s	0.394s	13
5	William Buller	Arden Motorsport	1m 30.109s	0.457s	19
6	Oscar Tunjo	Pons Racing	1m 30.120s	0.468s	20
7	Oliver Rowland	Fortec Motorsports	1m 30.162s	0.510s	22
8	Norman Nato	DAMS	1m 30.184s	0.532s	22
9	Marco Sorensen	Tech 1 Racing	1m 30.324s	0.672s	18
10	Pietro Fantin	International Draco Racing	1m 30.415s	0.763s	21
11	Beitske Visser	AVF	1m 30.530s	0.878s	19
12	Zoel Amberg	AVF	1m 30.627s	0.975s	18
13	Marlon Stockinger	Lotus	1m 30.629s	0.977s	16
14	Meindert van Buuren	Pons Racing	1m 30.643s	0.991s	19
15	Nicholas Latifi	Tech 1 Racing	1m 30.667s	1.015s	20
16	Sergey Sirotkin	Fortec Motorsports	1m 30.672s	1.020s	21
17	Matthieu Vaxiviere	Lotus	1m 30.847s	1.195s	19
18	Luca Ghiotto	International Draco Racing	1m 30.864s	1.212s	15
19	Roberto Merhi	Zeta Corse	1m 30.996s	1.344s	15
20	Matias Laine	Strakka Racing	1m 31.194s	1.542s	21
21	Roman Mavlanov	Zeta Corse	1m 31.211s	1.559s	18