FR3.5: Rowland leads Nurburgring practice

Championship leader Oliver Rowland set the fastest time in Formula Renault 3.5 free practice at the Nurburgring on Friday, ahead of this weekend's seventh round of the season.

In the afternoon session, Pietro Fantin led the way initially on a 1m43.995s, before the session was red-flagged as Carlin's misfortunes returned. Both its entries of Tom Dillmann and Sean Gelael stopped in separate incidents, Dillmann's shunt causing damage to the circuit's barriers leading to a further delay of 10 minutes.

On the restart, Rowland worked his way down to the benchmark 1m41.961s just after the session's midway mark. He was in part assisted in maintaining the top position when newcomer Rene Binder suffered an incident, which caused the session to be abandoned one minute prematurely.

Gustav Malja also dipped under the 1m42s to end the afternoon in second, ahead of Strakka teammate Tio Ellinas and Friday morning pacesetter Dean Stoneman.

Stoneman was quickest in the opening 50 minute morning session, spearheading a strong showing from the DAMS team. The Red Bull junior driver's teammate Nyck de Vries claimed second in FP1, and the pair swapped positions at the top of the timing screens during the final 17 minutes of action.

GP3 runner-up and this year's highest-placed FR3.5 rookie Stoneman left it until after the checkered flag to record his lap of 1m42.897s, edging out McLaren junior driver de Vries for top spot by 0.032s.

Both men are chasing their first FR3.5 victory in Germany, but de Vries's task is made more difficult by the imposition of a two-place grid penalty for the Nurburgring's first race on Saturday, following his involvement in a collision with Bruno Bonifacio at Silverstone.

Ellinas took third in FP1, ahead of former GP2 racer Dillmann.

Rowland ended the morning in fifth, and the Racing Steps protege enjoyed the cushion of Alfonso Celis Jr. and Malja between himself and title rival Matthieu Vaxiviere.

Nearly 10 minutes of the session was lost when Gelael's Carlin machine stopped at Turn 1 when his fire extinguisher was accidentally set off, bringing out the red flags. The Indonesian briefly returned to the track late in the session, but propped up the classification.

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Originally on Autosport.com