Friday, October 10: The Sharjah Team’s Rusty Wyatt topped the times with a last-gasp lap of 45.366 seconds in the second of the free practice sessions for the Grand Prix of Zhengzhou, China on Friday lunchtime.
Temperatures had only risen to 13°C for the second of the one-hour practice stints with a wind making it feel even cooler on the Yellow River. It was a far cry from the humidity and warmer temperatures in Shanghai last weekend.
Torrente had the bit between his teeth from the outset and the American opened his account with an impressive second lap of 45.585sec – the second quickest lap of the weekend thus far – to top the standings after just two minutes of the session. Stefan Arand and Erik Stark were also up to speed quickly with respective runs of 45.983sec and 46.140sec.
Early season pace-setter Rusty Wyatt had been a little subdued in the morning’s earlier session but the Canadian was on the money in the second stint and the Sharjah Team driver ran a 46.426sec lap on his third tour. Stark then bettered his times with a 45.636sec run. Maverick Racing’s Cédric Deguisne had sat out the first session but took to the water early in the lunchtime stint and guided his Moore to an early personal benchmark of 49.034sec.
The early times for Torrente, Stark, Arand and Wyatt stood firm through to the near mid-point of the session with Kyle Maskall, Damon Cohen and Alberto Comparato still to take to the water. Comparato then opened up with a 52.164sec and upped his pace with a 50.243sec run. The F1 Atlantic Team’s Ben Jelf and Duarte Benavente had used the opening session to carry out propeller testing and get used to the water conditions and Jelf carded a lap of 47.093sec in the second stint.
Maskall joined the on-water practice soon after leaving Cohen as the only driver not to take advantage of the practice time. With 20 minutes of the session remaining, Torrente’s lap of 45.585sec remained the benchmark.
The Red Devil-SMC F1 Team’s Ferdinand Zandbergen was running the latest update package installed on his Sharjah boat and the Dutchman posted a quickest lap of 49.231sec during his nine laps on the water. Team-mate Sami Seliö hopes to use the package on his boat at round four in Saudi Arabia at the end of November.
Andersson broke through the 46-second barrier heading into the final 12 minutes of the stint and Arand came within 0.05 seconds of Torrente’s quickest lap. The American held on to top the times until the closing seconds when Wyatt stormed through with a lap of 45.366sec – the fastest of the weekend so far.
