Nelson Piquet Jr and Clivio Piccione teamed up to take the spoils in last night's pre-testing GP2 series karting challenge.

_{source: GP2Series.com}

With a two week break splitting the last GP2 series action at the Nurburgring, and this week's testing session in the South of France, the drivers met up yesterday afternoon to take part in a light-hearted bit of karting at Circuit Paul Ricard.

With the serious job of testing to contend with today and tomorrow, last night's karting race was an enjoyable opportunity for everyone to catch up on each other's movements over the break.

The karting challenge was set up with a lottery grid with each driver being paired up with another GP2 series pilot that wasn't his regular team-mate. Following two five-minute practice/qualifying sessions, the race started in earnest: a one hour endurance run, with team-mates swapping driving duties every ten minutes.

As the drivers found the optimum route around the challenging Paul Ricard kart track, the lap times fell and the competition was close throughout the hour of competition. Some driver change-overs went smoothly. Others did not. But it didn't really matter. The whole evening was taken as one big piece of fun, with some of the drivers, who found themselves in open air, often dropping back to indulge in some closer combat. Those who watched on laughed and joked at the manouevres their counterparts were attempting, with the ever animated (despite his jet-lag) Scott Speed bouncing around at the sight of Viso's somewhat "individual" line through the chicane.