Martins dominates F2 qualifying session

Victor Martins stormed to pole position for the second round of the Formula 2 season, dominating the field in a qualifying session that was shortened by red flags. The battle for the top spots was intense, with reigning Formula 3 champion Martins competing against Ferrari juniors and newcomers Arthur Leclerc and Oliver Bearman.

Victor Martins secured pole position for the second round of the Formula 2 season after a dominant performance in a qualifying session that was cut short by a red flag. The reigning Formula 3 champion was immediately competitive, contending with both Ferrari junior drivers and fellow newcomers Arthur Leclerc and Oliver Bearman for the fastest lap time.

Ultimately, the top spot on the grid was claimed by the ART driver, who set the fastest lap time with an impressive lead of 0.744s over Oliver Bearman. Meanwhile, Bearman managed to secure second place and narrowly edged out Victor Martins’ teammate and current championship leader Theo Pourchaire by a mere one-thousandth of a second.

At the start of the session, all 22 drivers were on the track and took two warm-up laps to ensure that their supersoft tyres and brakes were sufficiently warmed up.

Roman Stanek set the initial competitive lap time, and soon after, other drivers began to post their lap times. Eventually, Arthur Leclerc took the lead with a lap time of 1.42.629 before the session was halted due to the first red flag.

Richard Verschoor caused the session to be halted with 18 minutes remaining on the clock. The Dutch driver spun into turn 22, causing his Van Amersfoort car to stall and lose power, which resulted in him being unable to continue with the session.

Following a short break to clear the track of Verschoor’s car, both ARTs and Carlins went out onto the track with used soft tyres, but ultimately aborted their laps and returned to the pits.

The following minutes were relatively quiet, with only Juan Manuel Correa and Jak Crawford on the track. However, shortly after, the remaining cars emerged from the pit lane and resumed their attempts to set competitive lap times.

With 10 minutes remaining in the session, drivers repeated the warm-up procedure from earlier in the session to prepare for their final attempts at setting a fast lap time.

As the track conditions continued to improve, Oliver Bearman briefly took the lead on the timing sheets before Victor Martins posted an impressive lap, pushing the Ferrari junior down to second place. However, a second red flag was soon issued, bringing the session to a premature end.

Arthur Leclerc encountered trouble on his flying lap, pulling over in turn 22, after potentially making contact with the wall. As a result, the session was not restarted, and Dennis Hauger was unable to complete his lap, leaving him in 15th place.

The championship leader, Theo Pourchaire, secured third place on the grid, with Oliver Bearman in second place. Meanwhile, Jack Doohan will join Pourchaire on the second row of the grid for Sunday’s race.

Jehan Daruvala secured fifth place on the grid, while Ayumu Iwasa was the highest-ranked Red Bull junior in sixth. Frederik Vesti, a Mercedes junior, will start in seventh place, followed by Kush Maini in eighth.

Ralph Boschung, the winner of the last round’s Sprint Race, will start in ninth place, while Jak Crawford of Hitech rounds out the top ten. Crawford will start from pole position in tomorrow’s Sprint Race.

The 20-lap Sprint Race is scheduled to take place tomorrow at 18:10 local time, with the Feature Race set for Sunday at 16:15 local time.

Results from the qualifying session.

Martins dominates F2 qualifying session Saudi Arabian 2023 Martins dominates F2 qualifying session Saudi Arabian 2023 Martins dominates F2 qualifying session Saudi Arabian 2023

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