Rookie Yuki Tsunoda claimed his maiden FIA Formula 2 pole position as Carlin bounced back from a difficult season-opening weekend with a strong performance at the Red Bull Ring.
The Red Bull junior, who also topped free practice on Friday morning, set a time of 1m14.803s early on during the 30-minute session which proved unbeatable.
Virtuosi will line-up second and third on the grid behind Tsunoda for Saturday’s feature race, with Renault F1 junior Guanyu Zhou – denied by reliability issues at the opening round – edging out last weekend’s feature race winner and championship leader Callum Ilott to take second.
Luca Ghiotto, who broke down before the start of the feature race last time out, put in an impressive performance for Hitech GP with the fourth fastest time, just 0.002s faster than Campos Racing’s Jack Aitken, fresh from his Formula 1 outing for Williams in the first free practice session on Friday morning.
A further 0.002s adrift of Aitken was reigning FIA F3 champion Robert Shwartzman, qualifying sixth for Prema, ahead the second Carlin machine of Jehan Daruvala.
Christian Lundgaard was eighth fastest for ART, with Prema’s Mick Schumacher recovering from an off in Friday morning practice to qualify in ninth.
Last weekend’s sprint race winner Felipe Drugovich will start from tenth for MP Motorsport. DAMS driver Dan Ticktum, who shared the podium with Drugovich, qualified in 15th.
Heavy rain is forecast for Saturday’s 40-lap race, which is sure to create plenty of drama.
Qualifying result
| 1 | Yuki Tsunoda | Carlin | 1m14.803s |
| 2 | Guanyu Zhou | Virtuosi | +0.038s |
| 3 | Callum Ilott | Virtuosi | +0.085s |
| 4 | Luca Ghiotto | Hitech | +0.171s |
| 5 | Jack Aitken | Campos | +0.173s |
| 6 | Robert Shwartzman | Prema | +0.175s |
| 7 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | +0.260s |
| 8 | Christian Lundgaard | ART | +0.296s |
| 9 | Mick Schumacher | Prema | +0.338s |
| 10 | Felipe Drugovich | MP Motorsport | +0.386s |
| 11 | Marino Sato | Trident | +0.427s |
| 12 | Marcus Armstrong | ART | +0.462s |
| 13 | Roy Nissany | Trident | +0.471s |
| 14 | Nobuharu Matsushita | MP Motorsport | +0.501s |
| 15 | Dan Ticktum | DAMS | +0.502s |
| 16 | Sean Gelael | DAMS | +0.529s |
| 17 | Nikita Mazepin | Hitech | +0.725s |
| 18 | Pedro Piquet | Charouz | +0.596s |
| 19 | Louis Deletraz | Charouz | +0.687s |
| 20 | Artem Markelov | HWA | +0.878s |
| 21 | Giuliano Alesi | HWA | +0.918s |
| 22 | Guilherme Samaia | Campos | +1.484s |
Feature image credit: @CarlinRacing official twitter
