Virtuosi’s Callum Ilott bounced back from a difficult weekend last time out to claim his second FIA Formula 2 pole position of the season at his home circuit at Silverstone.
Ferrari junior Ilott, who sits second in the standings despite spinning out of last Sunday’s sprint race at the same circuit, set a time of 1m39.062s on his second run to beat early leader and championship rival Christian Lundgaard.
ART’s Lundgaard, who is third in the standings, continued his strong form from last weekend by setting the pace during the first runs in qualifying with a time of 1m 39.177s.
But Ilott, who had been sitting in 12th place, produced fastest times in the second and third sectors to jump to the top of the timesheets.
With Lundgaard unable to improve on his next lap and, after Sean Gelael brought out the yellow flags by spinning to halt in his DAMS at Copse corner, Ilott’s time remained unbeaten.
Lundgaard will start tomorrow’s feature race from second, with Campos Racing’s Jack Aitken and DAMS driver Dan Ticktum – who won last time out – making up the second row in third and fourth respectively at their home track.
Luca Ghiotto qualified fifth for Hitech, who have won two of the last three races, ahead of the second Virtuosi of Guanyu Zhou, the Renault junior setting the fastest first sector of anyone before having to back off for the yellow flags at Copse.
Nikita Mazepin, who won the British GP feature race last Saturday, will start from seventh for Hitech ahead of Friday’s free practice pace setter Mick Schumacher for Prema, the team looking to bounce back from a poor weekend in which it scored just two points at Silverstone last week.
Louis Deletraz was ninth for Charouz, ahead of Carlin’s Yuki Tsunoda. But it was another poor result for championship leader Robert Shwartzman. Having finished outside of the points in both races last weekend, the Prema driver has some ground to make up Saturday having qualified in 11th ahead of last week’s polesitter Felipe Drugovich.
Qualifying results
| 1 | Callum Ilott | Virtuosi | 1m39.062s |
| 2 | Christian Lundgaard | ART | +0.115s |
| 3 | Jack Aitken | Campos | +0.216s |
| 4 | Dan Ticktum | DAMS | +0.264s |
| 5 | Luca Ghiotto | Hitech | +0.300s |
| 6 | Guanyu Zhou | Virtuosi | +0.332s |
| 7 | Nikita Mazepin | Hitech | +0.348s |
| 8 | Mick Schumacher | Prema | +0.386s |
| 9 | Louis Deletraz | Charouz | +0.412s |
| 10 | Yuki Tsunoda | Carlin | +0.432s |
| 11 | Robert Shwartzman | Prema | +0.463s |
| 12 | Felipe Drugovich | MP Motorsport | +0.464s |
| 13 | Pedro Piquet | Charouz | +0.559s |
| 14 | Marino Sato | Trident | +0.617s |
| 15 | Sean Gelael | DAMS | +0.721s |
| 16 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | +0.728s |
| 17 | Nobuharu Matsushita | MP Motorsport | +0.899s |
| 18 | Artem Markelov | HWA | +1.032s |
| 20 | Marcus Armstrong | ART | +1.237s |
| 19 | Giuliano Alesi | HWA | +1.424s |
| 21 | Roy Nissany | Trident | +1.553s |
| 22 | Guilherme Samaia | Campos | +1.999s |
Feature image credit: fiaformula2.com
