Marta García fastest in second practice in Valencia

In an all-Valencian battle, after Nerea Marti it was Marta Garcia to end fastest in the second F1 Academy practice session, ahead of Prema teammate Bianca Bustamante and Abbi Pulling – amidst track limits struggles for most of the field.

Another Valencian on top: Marta García returned on top of the leaderboard in a dominant second practice session at Circuito Ricardo Tormo, where the Prema driver was unbeaten throughout the 40 minute session, ending with a big margin of over 7 tenths of a second.

The Spaniard, already a two-time race winner after the season opener at Spielberg, set the early pace ahead of Abbi Pulling and Bianca Bustamante after the first round of timed laps.

Track limits were the big talking point after the first morning practice – and continued to be a major issue for the 15 drivers, as several times were deleted across the field. Lola Lovinfosse and Amna Al Qubaisi were the most affected, but most of the drivers have now received at least a warning after the two sessions.

Bianca Bustamante and Hamda Al Qubaisi improved their times and slotted ahead of Pulling, as the closest pursuers of Garcia; the Spaniard’s pace, though, remained widely unchallenged, having signed all three fastest sectors in the session.

Bustamante moved into second, ahead of Pulling – who improved with a 1:35.601 – and Hamda Al Qubaisi, 0.001 behind. The always solid Léna Bühler was once again in the top five, preceding ART Grand Prix teammate Carrie Schreiner, who is progressing at impressive pace in her re-adaptation to single seaters after 7 years in GT racing.

Amna Al Qubaisi was seventh fastest despite losing most of her laps to track limits infringements, clear of session 1 leader Nerea Martí in eighth.

With high temperatures and only 3 and a half sets of new tyres across the weekend, times were over a second slower than FP1. Emely de Heus and Chloe Grant completed the top ten.

The Scottish racer brought out the only red flag of the day so far, with a harmless spin in the gravel at turn 4 with a few minutes left on the clock. Grant was helped by the stewards and could make her way back to the pitlane with no damages – but the session was not resumed.

Chloe Chong completed a few more laps compared to FP1 and moved up to eleventh, preceding Megan Gilkes, Jessica Edgar, Maite Caceres and Lola Lovinfosse – the latter with no representative lap time after being hit by countless track limits infractions.

Next up is going to be the two qualifying sessions that will set the grids for race 1 and race 3; Q1 will furthermore set the grid for a shorter reverse grid race 2, where the eighth place driver will score pole position.

Qualifying 1 will go green at 16:25 local time, followed shortly after by Q2 at 16:45.

P1	Marta García	Prema Racing	1:34.549
P2	Bianca Bustamante	Prema Racing	1:35.314	+0.765
P3	Abbi Pulling	Rodin Carlin	1:35.601	+1.052
P4	Hamda Al Qubaisi	MP Motorsport	1:35.602	+1.053
P5	Léna Bühler	ART Grand Prix	1:35.807	+1.258
P6	Carrie Schreiner	ART Grand Prix	1:35.887	+1.338
P7	Amna Al Qubaisi	MP Motorsport	1:35.891	+1.342
P8	Nerea Martí	Campos Racing	1:36.044	+1.495
P9	Emely de Heus	MP Motorsport	1:36.134	+1.585
P10	Chloe Grant	ART Grand Prix	1:36.237	+1.688
P11	Chloe Chong	Prema Racing	1:36.416	+1.867
P12	Megan Gilkes	Rodin Carlin	1:37.444	+2.895
P13	Jessica Edgar	Rodin Carlin	1:37.922	+3.373
P14	Maite Caceres	Campos Racing	1:43.702	+9.153
P15	Lola Lovinfosse	Campos Racing	1:51.253	+16.704