Pulcini ends GP3 pre-season tests on top

Arden’s Leonardo Pulcini has ended the final GP3 pre-season test day at Valencia on top of the overall timesheets.

The Italian racer set a lap time of 1m21.233s in the morning session to lead ahead of ART’s Jack Aitken, who set an identical time. Aitken places behind Pulcini having completed his lap half an hour after he had stolen top spot.

This is the first time since Niko Kari led the morning of the second post-season test in Abu Dhabi last December that an Arden driver has finished fastest in a session.

Trident’s Dorian Boccolacci continued his good recent form to remain in the top-three overall, just 0.026 seconds adrift. Alessio Lorandi and Raoul Hyman were fourth and fifth fastest overall and claimed the best two times of the afternoon session ahead of the Frenchman.

No drivers improved their times in the later session as again teams focused on faster laps in the morning before analysing long run pace in the afternoon.

Ryan Tveter was sixth ahead of George Russell and Santino Ferrucci. Pulcini’s team-mate Niko Kari and ART’s Anthoine Hubert completed the top-10, with the Frenchman just 0.371s slower than the leader.

Bruno Baptista could only find the slowest time of the morning session, finishing 19th and last for the third time in five sessions, 1.033s off the pace.

The drivers will now have to wait another two weeks for their next session in their Dallara chassis’ when the season gets underway at Barcelona on May 12-14.