THE FASTEST NEWS ROUND-UP
Lap times in this year’s FIA Formula 3 European Championship are expected to fall by more than a second aided by Dallara’s new aero update kit. The update includes new front and rear wing endplates together with revised outer front-wing flaps, along with an extended diffuser. “It will vary from circuit to circuit, but if we take an average, twisty track like the Nurburgring, we’ll easily see more than a second of lap-time improvement,” said Dallara F3 project leader Jos Claes. “There’s a massive amount of extra downforce, about 17 to 18 per cent more”… Both the Greaves and Murphy Prototypes teams will take sabbaticals from sportscar racing this year, but vow to be back for 2018. The British-based teams both contested the LMP2 class of the European Le Mans Series last year, but have failed to put deals together for 2017. Greaves won P2 at Le Mans in 2011, while Murphy has been a regular entry in recent seasons… Briton James Calado will join fellow Ferrari factory driver Giancarlo Fisichella in an attack on the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup this year. Calado, a regular with Ferrari’s World Endurance Championship crew, will run with Russian entrant Kaspersky Motorsport in a Ferrari 488 GT3 run by AF Corse. Marco Cioci will be the third driver in the car… Ed Carpenter Racing’s JR Hildebrand set the fastest-ever lap of Phoenix International Raceway to lead Indycar’s pre-season test last week. Hildebrand set a 19.0401s lap at an impressive 193.234mph average on Saturday afternoon…