By alley - Nov 6, 2015, 11:31 AM ET

F3.5: Ellinas returns to top final test day

Tio Ellinas ended 2015's final day of Formula 3.5 V8 testing quickest for Strakka Racing at Aragon. The Cypriot's time of 1m40.686s was recorded in Friday's morning session.

Thursday's pacesetter Tom Dillmann was quickest in the afternoon for AVF, and second fastest on Friday's combined times.

"The morning was pretty good," said Ellinas, who scored victories for Strakka at Silverstone and the Nurburgring in 2015, but did not participate in the opening two days of testing. "I got the opportunity after a call from the team. I just came to check what's going on with the setup.

"I knew the other guys would keep going on after two days but this morning I took some time with the used tires just to keep up. At the end, we've done a very good job, good testing with different stuff to set a baseline. When we put the new tires on, the time was there so it's pretty good to show this to everyone."

Both Ellinas and Dillmann featured strongly in this season's Formula Renault 3.5 championship, but behind the old hands, this year's Formula Renault 2.0 Eurocup title contender Kevin Jorg continued his impressive adaption to the now-renamed category. The Swiss finished third fastest in session one, runner-up to Dillmann in the afternoon and comfortably clear of the other rookies.

Dean Stoneman was just a thousandth of a second shy of Jorg's time in fourth for Carlin, while Egor Orudzhev and Alfonso Celis Jr. continued with their regular 2015 teams Arden and AVF, respectively, to complete Friday's top six.

Arden had a new driver in its second car: 2012 German Formula 3 champion and GP3 race winner Jimmy Eriksson, who finished 11th.

"It's quite difficult, as a lot of drivers out today have already done a full season or all three days," said the Swede. "As I am coming in for the very last day, it's quite tough to just jump in the car and compare myself with all of them.

"It has also been a long time since I last drove on this track, so it's not the best preparation for me but I'm quite happy with how it's going. I have been getting comfortable in the car, and doing long stints to see how the Michelin tyres work because it's so different to GP3."

The Formula 3.5 V8 teams will return to action on March 29-30 at Barcelona for the first official tests of the 2016 season.

Championship organiser RPM also unveiled its new logo, which incorporates the company's colors and "stays faithful to the values of the series":

MORNING TIMES:

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Tio Ellinas	Strakka Racing	1m40.686ss	1m40.686s	42
2	Tom Dillmann	AVF	1m40.792ss	0.106s	35
3	Kevin Jorg	Lotus	1m41.068ss	0.382s	23
4	Dean Stoneman	Carlin	1m41.069ss	0.383s	27
5	Egor Orudzhev	Arden Motorsport	1m41.085ss	0.399s	38
6	Alfonso Celis	AVF	1m41.103ss	0.417s	32
7	Louis Deletraz	Fortec Motorsports	1m41.178ss	0.492s	37
8	Jake Hughes	Carlin	1m41.212ss	0.526s	26
9	Yu Kanamaru	Pons Racing	1m41.472ss	0.786s	39
10	Jimmy Eriksson	Arden Motorsport	1m41.642ss	0.956s	43
11	Callum Ilott	Strakka Racing	1m41.649ss	0.963s	44
12	Jack Aitken	Fortec Motorsports	1m41.716ss	1.030s	46
13	Roy Nissany	Tech 1 Racing	1m41.732ss	1.046s	45
14	Anthoine Hubert	Tech 1 Racing	1m41.763ss	1.077s	36
15	Tatiana Calderon	Pons Racing	1m41.817ss	1.131s	28
16	Vladimir Atoev	Spirit of Race	1m41.845ss	1.159s	28
17	Nikita Zlobin	Spirit of Race	1m42.199ss	1.513s	23
18	Guillaume Cunnington	Lotus	1m47.035ss	6.349s	33