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Abu Dhabi MRF Challenge: Dennis leads first practice

European F3 racer Jake Dennis led the way in the opening MRF Challenge Formula 2000 practice session at the Yas Marina circuit.

Race winner: Jake Dennis, Prema Powerteam Dallara Mercedes-Benz

Race winner: Jake Dennis, Prema Powerteam Dallara Mercedes-Benz

FIA F3 / Suer

The 17 drivers got their first taste of the Formula 2000 cars in the 30-minutes first practice session of the 2015/16 MRF Challenge season at the Yas Marina circuit.

After the first round of laps, Nikita Troitskiy set the early pace with a time of 2m22.547s but was quickly dethroned by Indian Tarun Reddy with a time of 2m17.227s.

As the session progressed, the lap times went quicker. They started in the 2m22's and dipped well into 2m16's and 2m14's by the end.

But Dennis went quickest overall in the closing stages, lapping 2m13.627s, the only one to get into the 2m13s mark.

Reddy finished second while Troitskiy was third and GP2 driver Nobuharu Matsushita ended up fourth, being the final driver who finished within a second of Dennis' time.

The female driver trio was led by F3 racer and Motorsport.com's columnist Tatiana Calderon, who completed the top five.

Making a return to single-seaters, Sean Walkinshaw was sixth ahead of Emmerson Fittipaldi's grandson Pietro Fittipaldi in seventh.

In a fairly incident-free session, the top 10 was completed by Sebastian Balthasar, Alice Powell and Max Fewtrell.

Pos.DriverTimeGAP
1 Jake Dennis 2:13.627  
2 Tarun Reddy 2:14.028 0.401
3 Nikita Troitski 2:14.068 0.441
4 Nobuharu Matsushita 2:14.485 0.858
5 Tatiana Calderon 2:15.041 1.414
6 Sean Walkinshaw 2:15.056 1.429
7 Pietro Fittipaldi 2:15.130 1.503
8 Sebastian Balthasar 2:15.345 1.718
9 Alice Powell 2:15.996 2.369
10 Max Fewtrell 2:16.069 2.442
11 Laura Tillet 2:16.134 2.507
12 Nerses Isaakyan 2:16.426 2.799
13 Karthik Tharani 2:16.432 2.805
14 Matt Draper 2:17.204 3.577
15 Dylan Young 2:17.466 3.839
16 Arjun Narendran 2:18.389 4.762
17 Harrison Newey 2:20.687 7.060

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