Yuki Tsunoda took his third Formula 2 pole position after pipping Carlin team-mate Jehan Daruvala in the dying seconds of qualifying at Sochi.
Daruvala led the majority of the session before fellow Red Bull junior Tsunoda snatched top spot by six thousandths of a second on his final run, while all four title protagonists qualified in the top seven.
Carlin continued its strong form from free practice, with Daruvala setting the pace straight away before improving by a further half a second to head the timesheets at the halfway mark, with Tsunoda second fastest. Daruvala was the first driver to set a sub 1m49s time after finding another tenth of a second on his second run, but he was displaced by Tsunoda who went 0.3s faster with a time of 1m48.688. Daruvala improved on his final lap, but it was only enough for second place.
Championship leader Mick Schumacher matched his best qualifying result of the season with the third fastest time for Prema, 0.2s behind the Carlin duo. A late effort from chief rival Callum Ilott saw the Virtuosi driver qualify in fourth, almost a further two tenths behind. Hitech’s Luca Ghiotto – the fastest driver in practice – set the fifth fastest time, but is under investigation for blocking Ilott early in the session, putting his starting position for tomorrow’s feature race in doubt.
ART’s Christian Lundgaard, third in the standings, was sixth fastest despite also being held up on an early flyer, ahead of Prema’s Robert Shwartzman, who sits fourth in the championship. Williams development driver Jack Aitken qualified in eighth for Campos ahead of Virtuosi’s Guanyu Zhou and Mugello feature race winner Nikita Mazepin for Hitech.
Juri Vips set the 11th fastest time, having spun early in the session, while DAMS team-mate Dan Ticktum qualified in a lowly 17th. Jake Hughes – making his F2 debut after his race-winning season in FIA Formula 3 – will line up in 15th for the feature race for HWA while the man he replaced, Guiliano Alesi, qualified in 21st, having switched to MP Motorsport.
Qualifying result
| 1 | Yuki Tsunoda | Carlin | 1m48.688s |
| 2 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | +0.006s |
| 3 | Mick Schumacher | Prema | +0.195s |
| 4 | Callum Ilott | Virtuosi | +0.359s |
| 5 | Luca Ghiotto | Hitech | +0.542s |
| 6 | Christian Lundgaard | ART | +0.564s |
| 7 | Robert Shwartzman | Prema | +0.596s |
| 8 | Jack Aitken | Campos | +0.618s |
| 9 | Guanyu Zhou | Virtuosi | +0.623s |
| 10 | Nikita Mazepin | Hitech | +0.786s |
| 11 | Juri Vips | DAMS | +0.951s |
| 12 | Pedro Piquet | Charouz | +0.982s |
| 13 | Louis Deletraz | Charouz | +1.011s |
| 14 | Marcus Armstrong | ART | +1.181s |
| 15 | Jake Hughes | HWA | +1.274s |
| 16 | Felipe Drugovich | MP Motorsport | +1.288s |
| 17 | Dan Ticktum | DAMS | +1.526s |
| 18 | Marino Sato | Trident | +1.661s |
| 19 | Roy Nissany | Trident | +1.768s |
| 20 | Artem Markelov | HWA | +1.800s |
| 21 | Giuliano Alesi | MP Motorsport | +2.255s |
| 22 | Guilherme Samaia | Campos | +2.687s |
Featured image credit: fiaformula2.com
