Thursday saw the first test session of the 2008 GP2 Main Series in Le Castellet, France. All 13 teams set up the new GP2 car for its first spin. 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. Though credited with the fastest lap time, Pastor Maldonado’s times were deleted due to an illegal rear wing configuration. Andreas Zuber was second fastest ahead of Mike Conway, Bruno Senna and Javier Villa.

“This has been a great first test session for the 2008 GP2 new car today," said GP2 Organiser Bruno Michel. "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.”

"We’ve had a very encouraging first day regarding the future reliability of our car. Our original plan was to do some sort of a shakedown, making sure that everything was in place and that all the different functionalities on the car worked properly," said GP2 Technical Director Didier Perrin. "However, we obtained much more than that: by the end of the day, the teams were already working on the performance of the car which is quite the accomplishment for a first run. The results definitely exceeded our expectations."