British driver, Ben Hanley, ended up at the top of the time sheet at Paul Ricard in a 1:12.652 as testing for the 2008 GP2 series championship got underway on Thursday. In the wake of a new area in the GP2 history, the new car has shown excellent reliability.

All 13 teams set up the new GP2 car for its first spin and despite some few minor incidents, the new car proved to be both competitive and reliable from the start.

Ben Hanley, at the wheel of his Barwa International Campos Team, set the pace after Pastor Maldonado, who was originally credited with the fastest lap time of the day, had his times deleted due to an illegal rear wing configuration.

“This has been a great first test session for the 2008 GP2 new car,” Bruno Michel, GP2 Organiser, commented. “Its reliability is the achievement of exceptional work from our partners Renault and Bridgestone as well as our official suppliers Dallara and Mecachrome. Seeing the 26 cars perform so well today gives us high hopes for the season to come. We’re really looking forward to the first races.”

Today’s session will start at 9:00am local time.

1. Ben Hanley Campos grand prix 01:12.880 14

2. Andreas Zuber Piquet Sports 01:13.202 24

3. Mike Conway Trident Racing 01:13.546 16

4. Bruno Senna iSport International 01:13.631 13

5. Javier Villa Racing engineering 01:13.735 22

6. Davide Valsecchi Durango 01:14.086 23

7. Kamui Kobayashi DAMS 01:14.127 29

8. Vitaly Petrov Campos grand prix 01:14.152 23

9. Giorgio Pantano Racing engineering 01:14.226 22

10. Adrian Valles Fisichella Motor Sport 01:14.258 15

11. Andy Soucek Fisichella Motor Sport 01:14.440 30

12. Christian Bakkerud Super Nova International 01:14.449 14

13. Sébastien Buemi Arden international 01:14.467 53

14. Romain Grosjean ART Grand Prix 01:14.510 34

15. Karun Chandhok iSport International 01:14.658 23

16. Alvaro Parente Super Nova International 01:14.745 34

17. Paolo Nocera BCN competicion 01:14.771 6

18. Milos Pavlovic BCN competicion 01:14.834 15

19. Michael Herck DPR 01:15.194 27

20 Diego Nunes DPR 01:15.282 18

21. Alberto Valerio Durango 01:15.336 16

22. Yelmer Buurman Arden international 01:15.444 19

23. Luca Filippi ART Grand Prix 01:20.586 14

24. Ho Pin Tung Trident Racing 01:27.221 10

25 Jérôme d`Ambrosio DAMS 8

26 Pastor Maldonado** Piquet Sport No lap time **All times deleted due to illegal rear wing configuration