Orudzhev quickest on Day 1 of Aragon test

After taking fourth place in the morning session, Orudzhev surpassing AVF's Tom Dillmann in the dying seconds of the afternoon with a lap of 1m40.675s, ending up 0.017s in the clear.

The morning's benchmark time of 1m40.760s was set by Matthieu Vaxiviere, the 2015 runner-up taking over from Aurelien Panis with less than 10 minutes left on the clock.

And with Vaxiviere, Panis and their compatriot Dillmann making up the top three as the only drivers to dip below 1m40s in the first session, Orudzhev was best of the rest in fourth place, at exactly 1m41s.

In fifth was Beitske Visser, who switched from Strakka for Teo Martin for the test. The Dutch racer had previously signed on to contest the season with Pons before the team pulled out of the category.

The top five in the afternoon featured the same names, albeit in a different order. Behind Orudzhev and Dillmann was morning pacesetter Vaxiviere, with Panis and Visser making up the top five.

15 cars took to the track during the day, the field made up of seven two-car outfits and the sole Durango entry of Giuseppe Cipriani.

Strakka, who had fielded Visser and Emil Bernstorff in Barcelona, sat out the test, as did fellow British team Comtec.

Day 1 results

Pos.	Driver	Team	AM	PM
1	Egor Orudzhev	Arden Motorsport	1:41.000	1:40.675
2	Tom Dillmann	AVF	1:40.975	1:40.692
3	Matthieu Vaxiviere	SMP Racing	1:40.760	1:40.728
4	Aurelien Panis	Arden Motorsport	1:40.813	1:40.776
5	Beitske Visser	Teo Martin Motorsport	1:41.152	1:40.853
6	Louis Deletraz	Fortec Motorsports	1:41.241	1:40.942
7	Yu Kanamaru	Teo Martin Motorsport	1:41.334	1:40.952
8	Pietro Fittipaldi	Fortec Motorsports	1:41.632	1:41.257
9	Roy Nissany	Lotus	1:42.023	1:41.209
10	Johnny Cecotto	RP Motorsport	1:42.428	1:41.492
11	Alfonso Celis	AVF	1:42.568	1:41.554
12	Rene Binder	Lotus	1:44.181	1:41.845
13	Vitor Baptista	RP Motorsport	1:42.572	No Time
14	Matevos Isaakyan	SMP Racing	1:42.835	1:43.438
15	Giuseppe Cipriani	Durango Racing Team	1:47.769	No Time