MP Motorsport’s Dennis Hauger took a maiden Formula 2 pole position in an incident-filled qualifying at Albert Park
The 30-minute session was red-flagged twice, with the second stoppage late on giving drivers enough time for just one more timed lap, following which Hauger produced a blistering effort to deny Prema’s Andrea Kimi Antonelli by 0.334 seconds.
Victor Martins was the cause of the first red flag after six minutes, the ART Grand Prix driver bouncing over the turn six kerbs and then spinning to a halt, leaving him at the back of the grid for both of this weekend’s races.
Antonelli moved to the top following the resumption with a 1m29.672s before Gabriel Bortoleto edged the Mercedes-AMG Junior by 0.1s. Hitech GP’s Paul Aron then took provisional pole with a 1m29.385s, with Hauger just 0.003s shy in second and Isack Hajdar a close third as the field headed to the pitlane for fresh tyres.
DAMS’s Jak Crawford brought the session to a halt for a second time with four minutes remaining by spinning into the barriers at turn 12.
Rodin Motorsport’s Zane Maloney managed to complete his lap before the red flags, moving into first with a 1m29.374s. But many others had their laps spoiled, including Prema’s Ollie Bearman who had to abort his run on the exit of the final corner as he tried to improve from 14th.
A frantic end to the session followed, with Bortoleto running wide with three corners remaining of his flying lap, almost impeding his Invicta Racing team-mate Kush Maini on rejoining.
Maini continued his lap to briefly take over at the top with a 1m29.313s before Antonelli leapt ahead with a 1m29.038s and Richard Verschoor improved to second. But Hauger then produced a 1m28.694s on taking the chequered flag to take pole for Sunday’s feature race ahead of Antonelli, Verschoor and Maini.
Points leader Maloney ended up fifth ahead of Aron, while Pepe Marti improved on his final lap to seventh ahead of his Campos Racing stablemate Hadjar and Bortoleto. Roman Stanek also went quicker to edge Zak O’Sullivan to 10th and provisionally take reversed-grid pole for Saturday’s sprint race.
Jeddah feature race winner Enzo Fittipaldi ended up in the barriers on his last lap, with the resulting yellow flags again denying Bearman, who had been quicker in the first sector than Hauger but ended up 16th after backing out.
Qualifying results
| Position | Driver | Team | Time / gap |
| 1 | Dennis Hauger | MP Motorsport | 1m28.694s |
| 2 | Andrea Kimi Antonelli | Prema | +0.344s |
| 3 | Richard Verschoor | Trident | +0.479s |
| 4 | Kush Maini | Invicta Racing | +0.619s |
| 5 | Zane Maloney | Rodin Motorsport | +0.680s |
| 6 | Paul Aron | Hitech GP | +0.691s |
| 7 | Pepe Marti | Campos Racing | +0.735s |
| 8 | Isack Hadjar | Campos Racing | +0.776s |
| 9 | Gabriel Bortoleto | Invicta Racing | +0.808s |
| 10 | Roman Stanek | Trident | +0.900s |
| 11 | Zak O’Sullivan | ART Grand Prix | +0.938s |
| 12 | Ritomo Miyata | Rodin Motorsport | +1.008s |
| 13 | Franco Colapinto | MP Motorsport | +1.278s |
| 14 | Joshua Duerksen | PHM Racing | +1.311s |
| 15 | Taylor Barnard | PHM Racing | +1.538s |
| 16 | Ollie Bearman | Prema | +1.876s |
| 17 | Rafael Villagomez | Van Amersfoort Racing | +2.389s |
| 18 | Enzo Fittipaldi | Van Amersfoort Racing | +2.884s |
| 19 | Amaury Cordeel | Hitech GP | +3.047s |
| 20 | Juan Manuel Correa | DAMS | +3.134s |
| 21 | Jak Crawford | DAMS | +26.614s |
| 22 | Victor Martins | ART Grand Prix | +31.142s |
Featured image credit: Formula Motorsport Ltd
