GP3: Gonda fastest in year's first session

Richard Gonda was fastest in the first GP3 practice session of 2016 at Barcelona, edging out Jenzer Motorsport teammate Akash Nandy.

In a frenetic end to the session, Slovakian Gonda turned a lap of 1m37.032s with five minutes remaining to displace Nandy.

With rain falling early, only Matt Parry and Nyck De Vries set times in a tentative start to the first competitive running with the series' new-for-2016 Dallara GP3/16 cars, with both lapping the circuit over the two-minute barrier.

It was a full 10 minutes – by which point half of the allotted time had elapsed – before anyone else attempted any meaningful running, as Koiranen's Mahaveer Raghunathan went fastest by five seconds, before improving his time by a further 2.5s. But that activity triggered more cars to head to the circuit, with Parry and Campos' Konstantin Tereshchenko trading laps at the top of the standings before a significant shift in times.

With a host of late improvements, Gonda was the last to head to the top of the time sheets before Tereshchenko crashed at Turn 1 with two minutes remaining to bring the session to an abrupt end.

Behind the Jenzer pair, ART's McLaren Formula 1 protege Nyck de Vries ended the session third-fastest, ahead of team-mate and Ferrari Academy driver Charles Leclerc.

Tereshchenko was fifth despite his accident, with he and teammate Alex Palou sandwiching America's Santino Ferrucci, who was sixth for DAMS.

Alexander Albon was eighth ahead of Jake Hughes, with Artur Janosz rounding out the top 10.

Originally on Autosport.com