Australian Jack Doohan stormed his way to a second pole position in the FIA Formula 2 Championship at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain. Doohan managed to hold off an extremely late charge from Hitech Grand Prix’s Jüri Vips, which saw the Estonian driver leap up from last to second and ahead of ART Grand Prix’s Frederik Vesti in third.
Carlin’s Liam Lawson was quick out of the blocks, becoming the first driver to set a representative lap. His time of 1:30.753 was immediately beaten by his teammate Logan Sargeant, before Théo Pourchaire and Marino Sato jumped to the top of the timing sheets in quick succession.
Jehan Daruvala then set the benchmark to go fastest with a 1:29.512. Whilst most of the grid clocked in a lap time early on, Marcus Armstrong, Doohan, Felipe Drugovich and Richard Verschoor decided to use the alternative strategy and wait for quieter conditions during the mid-point of the session.
In the dying minutes of the session, it was Doohan who made the most of it to snatch provisional pole with a 1:28.612. Vesti also benefitted from the late running, shooting up from 17th to second. In the end Armstrong had to settle for 13th and Lawson 16th.
Saturday’s Sprint Race (reverse-grid) lights go out at 5:40PM local time (3:35am NZ time).
Qualifying
1/ J Doohan 1:28.612
2/ J Vips 1:28.635
3/ F Vesti 1:28.852
13/ M Armstrong 1:29.375
16/ L Lawson 1:29.488
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