MP Motorsport’s Dennis Hauger took his second pole of the season in Formula 2 qualifing in Austria, while title contender Isack Hajdar was hampered by a reliability issue
AIX’s Joshua Duerksen scored his best qualifying result in second but missed on his first pole by 0.008 seconds, while points leader Paul Aron had an eventful session and ended up fifth.
It didn’t take long for Hauger to lead the way though his early benchmark of 1m16.412s was quickly beaten by Invicta Racing’s Gabriel Bortoleto, and Aron then moved ahead of the pair with a 1m16.039s.
Campos Racing’s Hadjar moved to the top with a 1m15.828s approaching the halfway stage but drama then struck when the Red Bull junior returned the pitlane with smoke pouring from his car, bringing his session to an early conclusion.
Hadjar’s time remained unbeaten until the final few minutes, with Hauger setting a 1m15.487s on his second run to snatch pole. His team-mate Franco Colapinto briefly climbed to second ahead of Aron before Bortoleto moved to with 0.114s of Hauger to provisionally take a front-row spot for the feature race.
But Duerksen edged Bortoleto by 0.003s and then improved on his final lap to make sure of second, with Bortoleto third ahead of Colapinto. Aron was fifth despite a late spin at turn six as he tried to improve on his best time, and the Hitech GP driver was also subject to a post-qualifying stewards investigation for an early pitlane incident where he was released into the path of AIX’s Taylor Barnard who stalled after stopping behind him.
Barnard went on to qualify sixth while Hadjar slipped back to seventh, one place ahead of his team-mate Pepe Marti. Invicta’s Kush Maini provisionally took reversed-grid pole for the sprint race by setting the 10th fastest time, and he is due to be joined on the front row for that contest by Prema’s Ollie Bearman.
It was a tricky session for few others, including Bearman’s team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli who will start both races from 16th. ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins and DAMS’s Jak Crawford, winners of the last weekend’s sprint and feature races respectively, qualified in 13th and 14th, while Rodin Motorsport’s championship contender Zane Maloney was 20th.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time / gap |
| 1 | Dennis Hauger | MP Motorsport | 1m15.487s |
| 2 | Joshua Duerksen | AIX Racing | +0.008s |
| 3 | Gabriel Bortoleto | Invicta Racing | +0.114s |
| 4 | Franco Colapinto | MP Motorsport | +0.161s |
| 5 | Paul Aron | Hitech GP | +0.234s |
| 6 | Taylor Barnard | AIX Racing | +0.320s |
| 7 | Isack Hadjar | Campos Racing | +0.341s |
| 8 | Pepe Marti | Campos Racing | +0.406s |
| 9 | Ollie Bearman | Prema | +0.413s |
| 10 | Kush Maini | Invicta Racing | +0.424s |
| 11 | Amaury Cordeel | Hitech GP | +0.433s |
| 12 | Zak O’Sullivan | ART Grand Prix | +0.482s |
| 13 | Victor Martins | ART Grand Prix | +0.508s |
| 14 | Jak Crawford | DAMS | +0.520s |
| 15 | Enzo Fittipaldi | Van Amersfoort Racing | +0.560s |
| 16 | Andrea Kimi Antonelli | Prema | +0.671s |
| 17 | Richard Verschoor | Trident | +0.730s |
| 18 | Rafael Villagomez | Van Amersfoort Racing | +0.783s |
| 19 | Juan Manuel Correa | DAMS | +0.803s |
| 20 | Zane Maloney | Rodin Motorsport | +0.805s |
| 21 | Ritomo Miyata | Rodin Motorsport | +0.861s |
| 22 | Roman Stanek | Trident | +0.975s |
Featured image credit: Formula Motorsport Ltd
