Maldonado fastest in free practice
Pastor Maldonado topped today's opening GP2 Series practice session at Silverstone
The current series leader set his benchmark lap of 1m40.393s on his first set of tyres and the time remained out of reach for the rest of the field, with Addax's Giedo van der Garde coming closest by finishing 0.129s short of the Venezuelan.
DAMS' Jerome d'Ambrosio was third quickest ahead of Sergio Perez (Addax). Luca Filippi, who returns to the series this weekend as replacement for the injured Josef Kral at Super Nova, finished up 13th.
Virtually everyone did their best times on their first set of tyres, with opportunities to improve in the latter part of the session being thwarted by a flurry of yellow flags. Most were for harmless spins, although Ocean's Fabio Leimer's run was brought to an early end by an engine failure five minutes before the session concluded.
A similar problem prevented Arden's Charles Pic from completing more than three laps, while initial pacesetter Luiz Razia was also an early spectator after his Rapax car came to a stop 10 minutes in.
Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps 1. Pastor Maldonado Rapax 1m40.393s 15 2. Giedo van der Garde Barwa Addax 1m40.588s + 0.195s 13 3. Jerome d'Ambrosio DAMS 1m40.712s + 0.319s 14 4. Sergio Perez Barwa Addax 1m40.749s + 0.356s 14 5. Christian Vietoris Racing Engineering 1m40.962s + 0.569s 14 6. Dani Clos Racing Engineering 1m41.010s + 0.617s 11 7. Davide Valsecchi iSport 1m41.028s + 0.635s 14 8. Jules Bianchi ART 1m41.140s + 0.747s 15 9. Oliver Turvey iSport 1m41.141s + 0.748s 15 10. Michael Herck DPR 1m41.259s + 0.866s 13 11. Sam Bird ART 1m41.390s + 0.997s 14 12. Luiz Razia Rapax 1m41.434s + 1.041s 4 13. Luca Filippi Super Nova 1m41.721s + 1.328s 14 14. Alberto Valerio Coloni 1m41.826s + 1.433s 14 15. Marcus Ericsson Super Nova 1m42.048s + 1.655s 15 16. Fabio Leimer Ocean 1m42.050s + 1.657s 8 17. Rodolfo Gonzalez Arden 1m42.095s + 1.702s 14 18. Adrian Zaugg Trident 1m42.233s + 1.840s 15 19. Giacomo Ricci DPR 1m42.238s + 1.845s 15 20. Max Chilton Ocean 1m42.858s + 2.465s 14 21. Ho-Pin Tung DAMS 1m42.956s + 2.563s 13 22. Johnny Cecotto Trident 1m43.099s + 2.706s 14 23. Vlado Arabadjiev Coloni 1m43.326s + 2.933s 16 24. Charles Pic Arden 1m53.076s + 12.683s 3
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