Luca Filippi topped a thrilling opening practice session for the third round of the Auto GP season at Brno, which saw three drivers trading fastest laps until the very end.
Filippi's best time of 1m45.349s on his final tour sent him to the top of the timesheets for Super Nova Racing just seconds after team-mate Jon Lancaster had ousted long-time leader Kecin Ceccon from the position. Lancaster, competing for the first time in Auto GP, came away second, while Ceccon took third with his best lap of 1.45.611s.
Fabio Onidi completed a strong session in fourth, just ahead of GP3 race-winner Adrien Tambay in fifth. Hungaroring race two winner Sergei Afanasiev finished just one hundredth of a second behind his DAMS teammate in seventh.
With his Lazarus team focusing on setup ahead of qualifying, current series leader Giovanni Venturini finished the session in seventh on his first visit to Brno. Rio Haryanto was next up for DAMS just ahead of an impressive performance from Fabrizio Crestani. Bruno Mendez rounded out the top 10 for Campos Racing.
Pos Driver Team Time Gap
1. Luca Filippi Super Nova 1m45.349s
2. Jon Lancaster Super Nova 1m45.543s + 0.194s
3. Kevin Ceccon Ombra 1m45.611s + 0.262s
4. Fabio Onidi Lazarus 1m45.670s + 0.321s
5. Adrien Tambay Gravity-Charouz/DAMS 1m45.681s + 0.332s
6. Sergei Afanasiev DAMS 1m45.762s + 0.413s
7. Giovanni Venturini Durango 1m45.863s + 0.514s
8. Rio Haryanto DAMS 1m46.017s + 0.668s
9. Fabrizio Crestani Lazarus 1m46.149s + 0.800s
10. Bruno Mendez Campos 1m46.450s + 1.101s
11. Samuele Buttarelli TP 1m46.779s + 1.430s
12. Pasquale di Sabatino TP 1m46.801s + 1.452s
13. Marco Barba Campos 1m47.222s + 1.873s
14. Giuseppe Cipriani Durango 1m48.341s + 2.992s
15. Francesco Dracone Emmebi 1m49.360s + 4.011s