F3.5 V8: Vaxiviere puts Spirit of Race on top in testing

The new Spirit of Race outfit ended its maiden test in the rebranded Formula 3.5 V8 series on top, with Lotus F1 junior Matthieu Vaxiviere.

The French driver, runner-up to Oliver Rowland in the 2015 series, set his time of 1m27.331s in the morning session of the second day at Jerez. Vaxiviere was third on the opening day, for Amato Ferrari's team, which has acquired Draco's infrastructure. Personnel from Draco ran the car for Spirit of Race.

"Yesterday we worked all day to set up the car for this morning," Vaxiviere said. "We were the fastest so I'm quite happy about that. Now, we just need to work on small details on the car but also on my side."

The day's fastest times were set in the morning, with Vaxiviere leading Pons Raing pair Yu Kanamaru and Matevos Isaakyan. Having set the pace on Tuesday, Kanamaru was 0.3 seconds behind Vaxiviere, and 0.02s ahead of Isaakyan, who was the top rookie.

Jake Hughes was fourth for Strakka Racing, with fellow Brit George Russell 10th for the team, after testing with Tech 1 Racing on Tuesday.

"Both of these testing days have been absolutely mega," Hughes said. "The car is unbelievable, especially compared to the Formula Renault 2.0.

"My lap times have been very competitive. I've been measuring pretty well against the previous year's drivers. I'm just a bit disappointed about the red flag this morning when I was on new tires, as it maybe cost me a chance to be fastest but overall I'm happy and surprised how well I've done with the car."

Louis Deletraz was fifth for Fortec Motorsport, ahead of AVF pair Marvin Kirchhofer and Egor Orudzhev and Jack Aitken for Arden Motorsport. New Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup champion Aitken spent the opening day with Fortec.

Russell led the way for the bulk of the afternoon session, in which teams focused on long runs, but was topped in the final half an hour minutes by Isaakyan.

"We used only one set of tyres when everyone used two in the morning," Isaakyan, a race winner in FR2.0 Alps, said. "I still managed to get P3, which is quite good, and I'm really happy with that result. Then we decided to completely change the car to take the setups from Yu Kanamaru. I was struggling quite a lot with the balance at first, but it was quite productive and I show my speed."

Celis Jr., Orudzhev and Kevin Jorg completed the top five in the afternoon.

The series' next test will be on Nov. 4-6 at Aragon.

MORNING TIMES:

AFTERNOON TIMES:

Originally on Autosport.com