Championship leader Anthoine Hubert claimed a second successive pole position in Hungary to extend his championship lead to ten points.
The Frenchman registered a time of 1:31.409 to claim pole position and score an extra four points towards his championship challenge. Hubert had to fight off a late challenge from Nikita Mazepin, who made it an all-ART front row for this afternoon’s Feature race.
Mazepin had an eventful start to the session as he was collected by MP Motorsport’s Niko Kari. The Finn, Kari, misjudged rejoining the circuit after running wide at turn four and cut across the front of the Russian, breaking his own rear suspension and ending his qualifying session. Amazingly, the ART held strong and the collision did not seem to have any affect for Mazepin, who finished just 0.075 off Hubert.
Barcelona pole sitter Leonardo Pulcini managed to split the ART stable with third and will be looking to continue his strong form that has seen him sitting third in the championship points. A late attack from Jake Hughes meant he managed to get the better of fellow Brit and ART driver Callum Ilott in the battle for fourth, as ART claimed four of the first five places.
Ryan Tveter scored his best result of the season last time out at Silverstone with third, as part of a podium lockout by Trident, and the American took sixth late in the session to finish as the top Trident car. Directly behind Tveter will be new Trident team-mate David Beckmann.
The German started the season with Jenzer but was replaced by fellow countryman Jannes Fittje at the start of the week. Soon after, it was announced that Alessio Lorandi would move up to Trident’s F2 squad for the rest of the season, leaving a void that Beckmann would quickly fill. The weekend had started better than expected with Beckmann going fastest in the Friday Practice sesssion and he will now start from his season’s best grid position of seventh.
MP Motorsport’s Dorian Boccolacci will be disappointed with eighth on the grid after being on pole in France but the Frenchman will be holding all the team’s hopes for the weekend after Niko Kari’s accident early in the session and Canadian Devlin DeFrancesco withdrawing from the event through illness.
Joey Mawson and Juan Manuel Correa round out the top ten on the grid to be their team’s leading drivers and their main aim will be to finish eighth for the reverse grid race on Sunday.
Silverstone winner Pedro Piquet finished the session down in 13th whilst Jenzer’s new signing Jannes Fittje will start 17th on the 19 car grid.
