The German who turned 16 only in April was 0.278 seconds faster than Callum Ilott (Van Amersfoort Racing, 1:32.198 minutes) in second position. Sérgio Sette Câmara (Motopark, 1:32.203 minutes), Mikkel Jensen (kfzteile24 Mücke Motorsport, 1:32.227 minutes), Joel Eriksson (Motopark, 1:32.281 minutes) and Weiron Tan (Carlin, 1:32.295 minutes) completed the top six at the 4.574-kilometre Hockenheimring.

David Beckmann set his fastest lap time early in the morning session of the mostly cloudy second day of the Hockenheim test and was happy with his achievements. “Yesterday I was somewhat tired but today I felt fit right from the start. The fact that I set the fastest lap time of the day is great. But it’s just as important that we prepared well for Zandvoort and the season finale at Hockenheim.”

Callum Ilott, currently third in the championship, finished second behind the rookie and said: “I had a good pace today and we could try several things. I think that we will be well prepared for the season finale at the same venue and I hope that I still will have title chances then.”

Sérgio Sette Câmara who was just 0.005 seconds slower than the Briton assessed his day of testing as follows: “We had a productive day and I once again kept on learning. If you are racing in such a professional environment you are learning all the time and keep on improving all the time. Unfortunately, my car didn’t run completely trouble-free. It somehow feels strange. Possibly a consequence of the accidents I had at the Norisring.”

Mikkel Jensen finished fourth in the tests at the Formula One circuit located not far from Heidelberg. “We didn’t go out for a qualifying simulation run today,” he revealed. “We wanted to focus on the race setup to solve the problems we have on longer distances. Now we have to analyse the results to find out which changes had the biggest effect.” Behind the Dane, Weiron Tan from Malaysia who made his FIA Formula 3 European Championship debut only at the Red Bull Ring secured fifth place: “I’m delighted with being involved in this FIA F3 European Championship test. The series is on an extremely high level and all the drivers are really good. I still lack experience with the Hankook tyres but I keep on learning all the time and consequently can enhance continuously.”

Lance Stroll (Prema Powerteam, 1:32.300 minutes), George Russell (HitechGP, 1:32.301 minutes), Pedro Piquet (Van Amersfoort Racing, 1:32.339 minutes) and Harrison Newey (Van Amersfoort Racing, 1:32,375 minutes) finished seventh to tenth on the time sheets.