Young Brazilian Felipe Nasr and the Raikkonen Robertson team reasserted themselves as Cooper Tires British F3 frontrunners today at Rockingham, topping the timesheets in two of the day’s three test sessions ahead of the weekend’s mid-season races.

Seventeen-year-old Nasr shot to the top in the second of the day’s three sessions and, though he could not manage in session three to better his earlier time, he was again the quickest. “I have had a good break from racing since the last meeting,” said Felipe, “and the team has had a break also, a chance to look at what we needed to do. We’ve made some changes and, so far, they seem to be working.”

His best time of the day was 0.036s quicker than that of his closest rival, Carlin’s Malaysian driver Jazeman Jaafar, but was more than two seconds off the testing pace set at Rockingham when the F3 teams visited in March. Strong gusts across the speedway’s main straight were thought to be the problem. “The wind was very bad,” said Nasr, “every lap it felt different on the straight…”

Nasr’s Raikkonen Robertson team-mates Daisuke Nakajima and Carlos Huertas both made the top eight today. James Calado, who was quickest in the first of the day’s sessions, ended his day third for Carlin, with championship leader Jean-Eric Vergne setting sixth-best time, behind Fortec’s Daniel McKenzie. Less than a second covered the top 12.

Menasheh Idafar out-pointed his T-Sport team-mate James Cole in each of the three sessions to lead the National class.

Round 13 is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon at Rockingham, with the championship’s first pit-stop race scheduled for Sunday morning and the third event of the Rockingham weekend, the 40-minute feature race, for Sunday afternoon. British F3 is sponsored by US tyre manufacturer Cooper Tire and is further supported by Sunoco Racing Fuels, Anglo American Oil Company and Mirror.co.uk

Cooper Tires British F3 International Series

Official testing, Rockingham 16/7/2010

Leading International class times am / pm

1  Felipe NASR / BRA,  RR Dallara-Mercedes  1m 13.247s / 1m 13.434s

2  Jazeman JAAFAR / MAS,  Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen  1m 13.283s / 1m 13.871s

3  James CALADO / GBR,  Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen  1m 13.476s / 1m 13.572s

4  Daisuke NAKAJIMA / JPN,  RR Dallara-Mercedes  1m 13.488s / 1m 14.451s

5  Daniel McKENZIE / GBR,  Fortec Dallara-Mercedes  1m 13.490s / 1m 14.916s

6  Jean-Eric VERGNE / FRA,  Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen  1m 13.493s / 1m 13.857s

7  Gabriel DIAS / BRA,  Hitech Dallara-Volkswagen  1m 13.510s / 1m 14.198s

8  Carlos HUERTAS / COL,  RR Dallara-Mercedes  1m 13.512s / 1m 13.996s

9  (INV) Pietro FANTIN / BRA,  Hitech Dallara-Mercedes  1m 13.528s / 1m 14.109s

10  Oli WEBB / GBR,  Fortec Dallara-Mercedes  1m 14.077s / 1m 13.762s etc

National class

1  Menasheh IDAFAR / GBR,  T-Sport Dallara-Mugen Honda  1m 14.065s / 1m 14.914s

2  James COLE / GBR,  T-Sport Dallara-Mugen Honda  1m 14.904s / 1m 15.340s

Full results http://bit.ly/9EXlxf