De Vries dominates last day of Formula 2 test for ART in Barcelona

De Vries's lap of 1m27.024s set midway through the morning was 0.239 seconds faster than Virtuosi Racing's Luca Ghiotto, with both beating McLaren Formula 1 junior Sergio Sette Camara's Wednesday benchmark.

After topping the times - beating last year's pole-time set by Alex Albon in the process - de Vries span at Turn 2, causing a red flag.

When his car was cleared there was nobody able to improve on his best lap.

Carlin's Louis Deletraz and Ghiottio's team-mate Guan Yu Zhou were third and fourth fastest, a swap in positions from the previous day's test, with Nobuharu Matsushita (Carlin) and Nikita Mazepin (ART) ensuring only three teams sat in the top six.

Ferrari Academy driver Mick Schumacher was the only other driver apart from de Vries and Sette Camara to top a session - on the final day in Jerez last week - and he was 11th on the final day in Barcelona.

In the afternoon, teams turned their attention to simulating race runs, with times in excess of five seconds slower or more than those set in the morning.

A small number of drivers bucked this trend to set flying laps early in their afternoon runs, with Campos Racing's Roberto Merhi, yet to be signed for the season, leading Arden's Tatiana Calderon (pictured above), who had been 19th fastest in the first two days of testing at Barcelona.

In the final half hour several drivers returned to track after completing their race runs to post quick times, and Sauber Junior Team by Charouz driver Juan Manuel Correa was able to beat Merhi to the top by 0.346s.

After Calderon in third, there was over a two second gap to the next best.

The only change in the test line-up was at MP Motorsport, where Richard Verschoor replaced IndyCar driver Jordan King and went fifth fastest in the afternoon.

With the quicker times having been set in the morning though, he was only 18th in the combined classification.