Stuvik sets GP3 pace in Silverstone

Trident’s Sandy Stuvik tops the timesheet in free practiceThai racer Sandy Stuvik posted the best laptime in the forty-five minute Free Practice session at the Silverstone Circuit ahead of Round 3 of the 2016 GP3 Series season.There was one new face to the line-up with Indian rookie Arjun Maini making his debut for Jenzer Motorsport, replacing Oscar Tunjo. Maini joins Akash Nandy in the Swiss outfit for this weekend.The session was run in warm and dry but very windy conditions as DAMS’ Jake Hughes led the way ahead of Trident’s Giuliano Alesi and Arden International’s Jake Dennis in the early stages. ART Grand Prix’s Nirei Fukuzumi stopped on track for a short period of time which caused a brief Virtual Safety Car. The Japanese driver soon got going and the VSC ended.After 20 minutes, Hughes bettered his personal best by over 1s to increase his huge advantage at the front of the pack. Alexander Albon found some more pace though to fly to the head of the timings by over half a second and was first to lap into the 1m48s. Series leader Charles Leclerc was also on a good lap and went up to second fastest.Stuvik had more pace up his sleeve and lapped 0.127s faster than Albon to go P1. There was a short red flag period due to debris in turns 11, 12 & 13 as the clock continued to tick down. Once the session was green flagged; there was just four minutes to go but there was still plenty of movement in the order.Arden International’s Jack Aitken rose to third quickest displacing Leclerc and Hughes; whilst his teammate Dennis shot to fourth. This was to be short lived as ART Grand Prix’s Nyck de Vries demoted the Brit to fifth in the final seconds.Stuvik remained on top at the end of the session, ahead of Albon, Aitken, De Vries, Dennis, Antonio Fuoco, Leclerc, Hughes, Fukuzumi and Matthew Parry..


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