Pau Grand Prix winner Alessio Lorandi topped the opening salvo of the Formula 3 European Championship’s two-day mid-season test at Hockenheim.

The Italian and his Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen stamped in the day’s fastest time quite early in the opening session, at which point he was comfortably ahead of the opposition.

Most of the quick runners set their times during late runs toward the end of the morning, when it was Mikkel Jensen who emerged as the closest rival to Lorandi, the Dane finishing 0.089 seconds adrift in his Mucke Motorsport Dallara-Mercedes.

Very close behind were Van Amersfoort Racing’s two British drivers, Callum Ilott and Harrison Newey, who sandwiched Hitech GP man George Russell.

Joel Eriksson, unlucky to be denied his maiden F3 win at the Norisring last weekend, rounded out the top six, and the Motopark-run Swede also topped the afternoon session, which was generally slightly slower.

Ilott was again in the reckoning, finishing a mere 0.004s adrift, while Lorandi backed up his morning form by claiming third in the afternoon.

Mucke’s David Beckmann and VAR runner Pedro Piquet were fourth and fifth in the afternoon, while the Prema Powerteam car of Nick Cassidy, who was quickest in the afternoon before a spree of runs in the final hour, finished sixth.

That was the quickest performance all day for a driver from Prema, which traditionally keeps its powder dry in testing; the team’s championship leader Lance Stroll had a best of seventh in the morning.

While most of the teams made the relatively short hop from last weekend’s round at the Norisring, Fortec Motorsport arrived from Daventry to make its Euro F3 return.

Ferdinand Habsburg put in a respectable performance on only his second day in an FIA-spec F3 car on Hankook tires, lapping 15th fastest out of the 23 runners in the morning.

MORNING TIMES

AFTERNOON TIMES