By alley - Sep 25, 2015, 5:01 AM ET

FR3.5: Dillmann fastest in Le Mans practice

Tom Dillmann emerged quickest from Formula Renault 3.5 free practie on Friday ahead of this weekend's penultimate round of the series at Le Mans. The Frenchman's time of 1m22.321s was recorded with a minute to spare in the second 50-minute session in the afternoon.

Carlin racer Dillmann, who is seeking a maiden win in the series, edged out Arden's Egor Orudzhev by 0.310s while Red Bull junior racer Dean Stoneman took third.

Only the top trio from the afternoon session succeeded in eclipsing championship leader Oliver Rowland's fastest time from the morning of 1m22.791s.

The Racing Steps Foundation-backed Fortec driver produced the benchmark FP1 effort on his final lap, to lead title adversary Matthieu Vaxiviere by 0.777s.

Track limit violations, an occasional source of contention on FR3.5's previous visits to the Le Mans Bugatti track, again appeared an issue during practice, and several drivers had times deleted.

Rowland was among many to fall foul of the strict track limit rules, and he suggested cones or bollards could have assisted in reducing the number of transgressions.

"The track limits here are difficult," said Rowland. "It would have been much better if they'd kept the cones out [from Thursday's track walk], but apparently the circuit isn't homologated for FR3.5 to race with them."

Fresh from his second victory of the season at the Nurburgring a fortnight ago, Tio Ellinas ended FP1 a close third, just 0.128s behind Vaxiviere.

DAMS racer Stoneman was fourth, ahead of a competitive showing by series returnee Andre Negrao in the lone Draco entry.

AVF driver Beistke Visser ended a closely contested morning session in a strong sixth, and a tenth up on this season's respective Hungaroring and Monaco winners, Orudzhev and Jazeman Jaafar.

ART Grand Prix GP3 driver Alfonso Celis caused the only stoppage of the morning when his AVF machine came to rest with an alternator problem at Turn 10 after just six minutes.

The second session was red-flagged twice after incidents for Jazeman Jaafar and Auto GP refugee Nikita Zlobin.

FREE PRACTICE 1

Pos	Driver	Team	Gap	Laps
1	Oliver Rowland	Fortec Motorsports	1m22.791s	23
2	Matthieu Vaxiviere	Lotus	0.777s	19
3	Tio Ellinas	Strakka Racing	0.905s	24
4	Dean Stoneman	DAMS	0.912s	24
5	Andre Negrao	International Draco Racing	0.950s	23
6	Beitske Visser	AVF	1.024s	20
7	Egor Orudzhev	Arden Motorsport	1.094s	24
8	Jazeman Jaafar	Fortec Motorsports	1.201s	24
9	Nicholas Latifi	Arden Motorsport	1.263s	22
10	Tom Dillmann	Jagonya Ayam with Carlin	1.309s	21
11	Nyck de Vries	DAMS	1.501s	23
12	Gustav Malja	Strakka Racing	1.548s	25
13	Sean Gelael	Jagonya Ayam with Carlin	1.955s	24
14	Roy Nissany	Tech 1 Racing	2.055s	22
15	Marlon Stockinger	Lotus	2.059s	25
16	Yu Kanamaru	Pons Racing	2.186s	18
17	Aurelien Panis	Tech 1 Racing	2.334s	22
18	Alfonso Celis	AVF	2.608s	10
19	Nikita Zlobin	Pons Racing	4.460s	17

FREE PRACTICE 2

Pos	Driver	Team	Gap	Laps
1	Tom Dillmann	Jagonya Ayam with Carlin	1m22.321s	21
2	Egor Orudzhev	Arden Motorsport	0.310s	24
3	Dean Stoneman	DAMS	0.430s	24
4	Matthieu Vaxiviere	Lotus	0.526s	21
5	Tio Ellinas	Strakka Racing	0.593s	22
6	Oliver Rowland	Fortec Motorsports	0.686s	25
7	Nyck de Vries	DAMS	0.873s	22
8	Andre Negrao	International Draco Racing	0.881s	22
9	Sean Gelael	Jagonya Ayam with Carlin	0.920s	22
10	Beitske Visser	AVF	0.935s	24
11	Jazeman Jaafar	Fortec Motorsports	1.009s	21
12	Aurelien Panis	Tech 1 Racing	1.075s	21
13	Gustav Malja	Strakka Racing	1.128s	22
14	Nicholas Latifi	Arden Motorsport	1.139s	20
15	Roy Nissany	Tech 1 Racing	1.175s	20
16	Alfonso Celis	AVF	1.248s	23
17	Marlon Stockinger	Lotus	1.328s	20
18	Yu Kanamaru	Pons Racing	1.666s	21
19	Nikita Zlobin	Pons Racing	2.203s	20