Deletraz fastest again on second day of F2 test

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Having pipped ART's Marcus Armstrong to the top spot on Thursday, Deletraz - testing for Charouz - edged another Ferrari junior Robert Shwartzman by setting a 1m50.124s with five minutes to go in the afternoon session.

Prema driver Shwartzman himself had overhauled Deletraz by just over a hundredth of a second a few minutes prior, and wound up 0.052s adrift at the chequered flag.

None of the other participating drivers came close to the pair in the afternoon, meaning Armstrong's benchmark from the morning - a 1m50.436s - proved good enough for third overall.

Fellow Ferrari junior Callum Ilott (UNI-Virtuosi) was 0.025s slower than Armstrong and exactly level with Deletraz heading into the mid-day break, and though he posted no representative single-lap effort in the afternoon, his earlier time sealed fourth place on the day.

Nikita Mazepin (Carlin) was third-quickest in the afternoon and was fifth overall on the strength of his morning time, narrowly ahead of UNI-Virtuosi's Guan Yu Zhou and MP Motorsport's Ralph Boschung.

Pedro Piquet, partnering Deletraz at Charouz, was fourth-fastest after the break and made up the top eight on the day.

DAMS' new ex-Red Bull junior recruit Dan Ticktum, Boschung's MP stablemate Felipe Drugovich, ART's Renault-backed rookie Christian Lundgaard and Prema's other Ferrari protege Mick Schumacher were the only other drivers to lap below 1m51s.

Mazepin and Ticktum came to a halt on-track to cause red-flag stoppages, before and after the mid-day break respectively.

Louis Deletraz, Charouz Racing System