Yuki Tsunoda claimed his second FIA Formula 2 pole position of the season after topping a disrupted qualifying session at Spa Francorchamps.
The Red Bull and Honda protege led most of the session following a couple of early red flag periods, despite a late challenge from Hitech’s Nikita Mazepin. But it was a difficult session for championship leader Callum Ilott. Having set the 10th fastest time in free practice earlier in the day, the Virtuosi driver could only qualify in 12th.
Trident’s Marino Sato set the pace before two red flag periods before the 10-minute mark, having been only one of six drivers to set a time. Gulherme Samaia caused the session to be halted when his Campos machine stopped at the side of the track with a small fire.
Action resumed for only a few seconds before a second brief stoppage to allow a recovery vehicle that had attended to Samaia’s car to return to its position. Ilott jumped to the top of the time-sheets when green flag running got back underway, but Carlin’s Tsunoda – who was second fastest in practice – went faster to claim provisional pole.
Tsunoda was briefly displaced by Mazepin once the drivers began their second runs, but he was denied a maiden pole when Tsunoda went 0.1s faster with a time of 1m57.593s Nobaharu Matsushita – who won the previous feature race at Barcelona – qualified a season’s best third, with MP Motorsport team-mate Felipe Drugovich in fifth.
Sandwiched between them in fourth was practice pacesetter Robert Shwartzman for Prema, who will be looking to take advantage of championship rival Ilott’s lowly grid spot in Saturday’s feature race. Guanyu Zhuo was sixth fastest for Virtuosi ahead of Prema’s Mick Schumacher and Louis Deletraz for Charouz.
The second Carlin of Yehan Daruvala and Hitech’s Luca Ghiotto will share the fifth row on Saturday having qualified in ninth and tenth respectively.
Dan Ticktum was forced to miss free practice after an inconclusive COVID-19 test but, after being cleared to drive in qualifying following a subsequent negative test, could only qualify in 14th. His DAMS team-mate Juri Vips – standing in for the injured Sean Geleal – will make his F2 debut from the back of the grid after his car stopped on track with an issue at the beginning of qualifying before he had recorded a time.
Qualifying results
| 1 | Yuki Tsunoda | Carlin | 1m57.593s |
| 2 | Nikita Mazepin | Hitech | +0.128s |
| 3 | Nobuharu Matsushita | MP Motorsport | +0.251s |
| 4 | Robert Shwartzman | Prema | +0.268s |
| 5 | Felipe Drugovich | MP Motorsport | +0.421s |
| 6 | Guanyu Zhou | Virtuosi | +0.429s |
| 7 | Mick Schumacher | Prema | +0.483s |
| 8 | Louis Deletraz | Charouz | +0.487s |
| 9 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | +0.544s |
| 10 | Luca Ghiotto | Hitech | +0.575s |
| 11 | Pedro Piquet | Charouz | +0.601s |
| 12 | Callum Ilott | Virtuosi | +0.666s |
| 13 | Marcus Armstrong | ART | +0.725s |
| 14 | Dan Ticktum | DAMS | +0.798s |
| 15 | Roy Nissany | Trident | +0.985s |
| 16 | Marino Sato | Trident | +1.366s |
| 17 | Jack Aitken | Campos | +1.414s |
| 18 | Christian Lundgaard | ART | +1.486s |
| 19 | Artem Markelov | HWA | +1.614s |
| 20 | Giuliano Alesi | HWA | +5.398s |
| 21 | Guilherme Samaia | Campos | |
| 22 | Juri Vips | DAMS |
Feature image credit: @fia_f2 official twitter
