FR3.5: Orudzhev, Vaxiviere fastest on Friday

Egor Orudzhev followed up his Le Mans victory by setting the pace in Formula Renault 3.5 practice at Jerez on Friday. The Arden rookie held a top-three spot on the timing screens for the majority of Friday morning's opening 50 minute session.

Orudzhev used new tires to produce his quickest time of 1m28.875s in the final three minutes of running, and was satisfied to achieve the result after leaving the road earlier in the session.

"On the first set I felt quite comfortable straight away," said Orudzhev. "But on the second set I made a small mistake at Turn 5 and went over the curbs and through the gravel, damaging the floor a little bit. We put new tires on at the end, as we expect qualifying tomorrow morning to be in similar conditions."

Championship runner-up Matthieu Vaxiviere topped the second session in the afternoon, thanks to a late lap of 1m28.893s. The Lotus Formula 1 junior driver had earlier ended the morning down in the penultimate position on the first practice classification.

"We were on old tires and testing many things this morning," said Vaxiviere. "I am quite looking forward to these two days because when we ran here at the beginning of the year the car was really good."

AVF's pairing of Beitske Visser and Alfonso Celis Jr took second and third in practice one.

"We tried new tires, as did two other teams," said team boss Adrian Valles. "I don't think we put our best laps together so there is a couple of tenths to come."

McLaren junior racer Nyck de Vries took fourth in the morning session on the final outing for DAMS in the series. Orudzhev's Arden teammate Nicholas Latifi was fifth, ahead of double 2015 winner Tio Ellinas. Cypriot Ellinas was Vaxiviere's closest challenger in the afternoon, finishing 0.524s adrift of the Frenchman's benchmark.

Hunting his first win of the season, Carlin's Tom Dillmann took third ahead of recently crowned FR3.5 champion Oliver Rowland. At Jerez this weekend the Fortec racer will aim to move clear of last year's champion Carlos Sainz Jr. record for the number of wins in a single season – they are currently tied on seven victories.

The second Fortec entry of Monaco winner Jazeman Jaafar ended the afternoon in fifth, just over a tenth clear of de Vries.

PRACTICE ONE TIMES:

PRACTICE TWO TIMES:

Originally on Autosport.com