Maloney, Browning go quickest again as F2 and F3 pre-season testing wraps up in Bahrain

TDT | Manama                                                      

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Zane Maloney of Barbados and Luke Browning from Great Britain set a blistering pace yesterday as Formula 2 and Formula 3 pre-season testing wrapped up in Bahrain.

Maloney and Browning were fastest for the second straight day at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC).

Maloney topped the combined timesheet in F2 for Rodin Motorsport, while Browning steered his Hitech Pulse-Eight challenger to F3’s best overall lap.

Both Formula 1 feeder series had three days of running in Sakhir as part of their final preparations for the start of their 2024 seasons, taking place in support of the Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix this 29 February to 2 March.

The tests this week gave the F2 and F3 fields some valuable track time in their new cars, with their future star drivers warming up for their season-long battles ahead.

Maloney had a lightning-quick lap of one minute 42.468 seconds during yesterday’s F2 evening session, held under lights at night.

Maloney had a busy day out on track, completing 76 laps in total. His leading time was the second-best of the three-day sessions—beaten only by his pace-setting mark from the second day’s evening runs, which was the only time the F2 runners went sub-1:42.000 in testing.

Classified behind him on the overall day-three timesheet was American Jak Crawford of DAMS Lucas Oil, who was 0.193s slower, while Maloney’s Japanese teammate Ritomo Miyata came third 0.216s behind.

Frenchman Isack Hadjar of Campos Racing, quickest in the morning, was fourth overall 0.244s from Maloney, while fifth was Brazilian Enzo Fittipaldi of Van Amersfoort Racing 0.340s back.

Spaniard Josep Maria Marti (+0.419s) of Campos Racing was sixth, Dutchman Richard Verschoor (+0.733s) of Trident seventh, the MP Motorsport tandem of Argentinian Franco Colapinto (+0.826s) and Norwegian Dennis Hauger (+0.869s) eighth and ninth, respectively, and Paraguayan Joshua Durksen of PHM AIX Racing 10th.

All 22 of this season’s competing F2 drivers were in action yesterday in Bahrain.

Fastest

Meanwhile, Browning clocked F3’s fastest time of the day during yesterday’s morning session. He had a mark of 1:46.566 while going for 66 laps of work in his Hitech contender.

Browning’s best yesterday was also the quickest lap from all three days of the F3 tests.

Bulgarian Nikola Tsolov of ART Grand Prix followed 0.259s behind, while American Max Esterson of Jenzer Motorsport was third-quickest 0.270s back.

Martinius Stenshome from Norway in another Hitech car was fourth on the times 0.413s off his teammate’s pace, while day one leader Noel Leon from Mexico competing for Van Amersfoort Racing was fifth 0.630s back, and Dutch driver Laurens van Hoepen came sixth 0.732s adrift to make it two ART Grand Prix cars in the overall top 10.

Trident ’s three drivers, Frenchman Sami Meguetounif (+0.757s), Italian Leonardo Fornaroli (+0.761s) and Mexican Santiago Ramos (+0.777s), were sixth through ninth, respectively, and Irishman Alex Dunne of MP Motorsport completed the top 10, 0.815s from first, amongst the 30-car field.

Swede Dino Beganovic of defending F3 champions Prema Racing went quickest in F3’s afternoon session with a best lap time of 1:48.285.