Dean Stoneman, having topped Brand Hatch’s first practice session on Friday morning, has remained quickest in the afternoon period. The British driver, heading into the weekend’s first qualifying session later today, leads the way from compatriots Will Bratt and Tom Gladdis.
Stoneman elected to put new tyres on the car in the final minutes and with times being extremely close across the top ten, the Southampton driver put the rest of the field in the shade by more than seven tenths of a second.
Prior to the session, Bratt confirmed that he would be saving his new tyres for this afternoon's qualifying session, and this could account for the huge gap to Stoneman. Bratt will once again be delighted with his consistency at Brands Hatch however, as the 22-year-old again finished second - exactly where he finished in Tuesday's test.
Gladdis remained firmly inside the top three on his return to racing while Armaan Ebrahim impressively rounded out top four, having briefly set the ultimate pace in final five minutes.
Championship leader Jolyon Palmer remained on worn rubber throughout the 30 minutes of running, but the 19-year-old will be happy with fifth place ahead of today's vital qualifying session.
Italian racer Nicola De Marco made a dramatic improvement on his performance from free practice one. De Marco missed the test day here on Tuesday and seemed to be struggling for grip on worn rubber earlier today, but the 19-year-old responded well this afternoon to take sixth.
F2 front-runners Philipp Eng and Benjamin Bailly were seventh and eighth respectively, whilst Sergey Afanasiev was a slightly disappointing ninth. Benjamin Lariche rounded out the top ten after briefly setting the fastest time of any driver in the final sector.
Plamen Kralev's session ended early when the Bulgarian beached his car at Clearways in the early running, whilst debutant Julian Theobald completed just one tour of 2.3 mile circuit after making contact with Mihai Marinescu on Clark Curve.
Qualifying 1 begins at 4:40pm local time (BST)
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