Hitech Pulse-Eight’s Tymek Kucharczyk recorded the quickest time on the first day of testing for the GB3 Championship at Spa-Francorchamps on Thursday.
With all four sessions affected by rain, the Polish driver’s best time came in the morning’s opening session, in which he set a 2m27.168s, 0.268s quicker than Rodin Motorsport’s Ugo Ugochukwu.
The American’s teammate and championship leader Louis Sharp was third quickest, and just 0.031s clear of Elite’s McKenzy Cresswell, who heads into his third GB3 event at Spa this weekend.
VRD Racing by Arden’s series newcomer Nikita Johnson was an impressive fifth quickest, 0.021s away from Cresswell and a tenth clear of the second Hitech machine of Gerrard Xie, a race winner here last weekend in Euro Formula.
The third Rodin of Arthur Rogeon was next up in seventh, a tenth clear of Hitech’s double race winner Will Macintyre, while Chris Dittmann Racing’s one-off entrant Kanato Le acquitted himself well on his first taste of GB3 by setting the ninth quickest time.
Fortec’s Edward Pearson completed the top-10, ahead of JHR’s Josh Irfan, CDR’s Flynn Jackes, Elite’s Hugo Schwarze, JHR’s John Bennett and Fortec’s Colin Queen.
Each of the top-15 drivers set their best times in the opening session, with Jarrod Waberski (Elite), Patrick Heuzenroeder (JHR), Sebastian Murray (CDR), newcomer Marcus Luzio and Hillspeed teammate Aditya Kulkarni the five drivers who found a time improvement in the second of four sessions.
Testing resumes tomorrow with three more sessions ahead of qualifying at 17.15 local time.
GB3 Championship, partnered by the BRDC, Spa-Francorchamps Thursday test combined result:
1. Tymek Kucharczyk, Hitech Pulse-Eight, 2m27.168s (session one)
2. Ugo Ugochukwu, Rodin Motorsport, +0.268s (session one)
3. Louis Sharp, Rodin Motorsport, +0.835s (session one)
4. McKenzy Cresswell, Elite Motorsport, +0.866s (session one)
5. Nikita Johnson, VRD Racing by Arden, +0.887s (session one)
6. Gerrard Xie, Hitech Pulse-Eight, +0.987s (session one)
7. Arthur Rogeon, Rodin Motorsport, +1.211s (session one)
8. Will Macintyre, Hitech Pulse-Eight, +1.326s (session one)
9. Kanato Le, Chris Dittmann Racing, +2.021s (session one)
10. Edward Pearson, Fortec Motorsport, +2.539s (session one)
11. Josh Irfan, JHR Developments, +2.888s (session one)
12. Flynn Jackes, Chris Dittmann Racing, +2.920s (session one)
13. Hugo Schwarze, Elite Motorsport, +3.026s (session one)
14. John Bennett, JHR Developments, +3.050s (session one)
15. Colin Queen, Fortec Motorsport, +3.417s (session one)
16. Jarrod Waberski, Elite Motorsport, +3.518s (session two)
17. Noah Ping, VRD Racing by Arden, +3.864s (session one)
18. Patrick Heuzenroeder, JHR Developments, +4.663s (session two)
19. Shawn Rashid, VRD Racing by Arden, +4.785s (session one)
20. Sebastian Murray, Chris Dittmann Racing, +5.746s (session two)
21. Marcus Luzio, Hillspeed, +7.818s (session two)
22. Aditya Kulkarni, Hillspeed, +7.988s (session two)