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F2 Saudi Arabia: Ferrari junior Bearman scores pole

Bearman will start from the front of the grid in Jeddah as he bids to kick life into an F2 championship bid that failed to launch in Bahrain one week ago.

Sealing pole position with a 1m 42.217s effort, the Prema driver is joined on the front row by Invicta's Kush Maini, who was only denied pole position in Bahrain after damage caused by a kerb strike made his car fail the ride height tests.

At the season opening event, the tyres were good only for one lap in qualifying. This was not the case in Saudi Arabia, as the drivers all registered a pair of early banker times, with the second efforts widely yielding improvements.

On the first runs, Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Prema), Zak O’Sullivan (ART) and Gabriel Bortoleto (Invicta) all attempted to set a third time, but bailed to the pitlane rather than completing the effort.

Double race winner from Bahrain and early championship leader Zane Maloney lost track time as his Rodin entry required attention in the pits with the concern centring around his engine and gearbox.

Maloney’s day would get worse when he stopped on the track after the session had concluded, with the Barbadian having qualified in 16th.

Dennis Hauger, MP Motorsport (Photo by: Formula Motorsport Ltd)

Last year, the times improved by over eight tenths between the two stints, making the initial leaderboard irrelevant, something that quickly became evident when Dennis Hauger (MP Motorsport) dropped down the order to seventh as Bearman and Bortoleto notably improved to provisionally lock out the front row.

But while the order behind the frontrunning duo shifted as the chequered flag fell, there was no last-gasp change at the front, as Bearman held on by 0.025s to bounce back from a scoreless opening round.

Jak Crawford (DAMS) backed up his strong season opening performance by securing third on the grid alongside Victor Martins (ART), who like Bearman had suffered a slow start to what had been expected to be a championship-challenging year.

Paul Aron (Hitech) will start the sprint race on pole after qualifying in 10th, with Richard Verschoor (Trident) joining him on the front row for the partially reversed grid outing.

After Franco Colapinto caused early concern for his Van Amersfoort Racing team when he struck the wall on the exit of Turn 17, he was able to recover to qualify 13th.

F2 Saudi Arabia qualifying results

   
1
 - 
3
   
Cla Driver # Laps Time Interval km/h
1 United Kingdom O. Bearman Prema Powerteam 3 12

1'42.217

  217.443
2 India K. Maini Invicta Racing 9 11

+0.025

1'42.242

0.025 217.390
3 United States J. Crawford DAMS Lucas Oil 7 12

+0.159

1'42.376

0.134 217.105
4 France V. Martins ART Grand Prix 1 13

+0.180

1'42.397

0.021 217.061
5 Brazil E. Fittipaldi Van Amersfoort Racing 14 13

+0.203

1'42.420

0.023 217.012
6 Italy A. Antonelli Prema Powerteam 4 13

+0.228

1'42.445

0.025 216.959
7 Norway D. Hauger MP Motorsport 11 12

+0.238

1'42.455

0.010 216.938
8 France I. Hadjar Campos Racing 20 12

+0.296

1'42.513

0.058 216.815
9 Netherlands R. Verschoor Trident 22 12

+0.368

1'42.585

0.072 216.663
10
P. Aron Hitech Pulse-Eight
17 13

+0.421

1'42.638

0.053 216.551
11
P. Martí Campos Racing
21 12

+0.451

1'42.668

0.030 216.488
12 Czech Republic R. Staněk Trident 23 13

+0.455

1'42.672

0.004 216.479
13 Argentina F. Colapinto MP Motorsport 12 12

+0.644

1'42.861

0.189 216.081
14 United Kingdom Z. O'Sullivan ART Grand Prix 2 13

+0.669

1'42.886

0.025 216.029
15
G. Bortoleto Invicta Racing
10 13

+0.725

1'42.942

0.056 215.911
16 Barbados Z. Maloney Rodin Motorsport 5 11

+0.823

1'43.040

0.098 215.706
17 United States J. Correa DAMS Lucas Oil 8 12

+0.901

1'43.118

0.078 215.543
18
T. Barnard PHM AIX Racing
25 11

+0.928

1'43.145

0.027 215.486
19
J. Duerksen PHM AIX Racing
24 12

+1.327

1'43.544

0.399 214.656
20 Japan R. Miyata Rodin Motorsport 6 12

+1.560

1'43.777

0.233 214.174
21 Belgium A. Cordeel Hitech Pulse-Eight 16 13

+1.680

1'43.897

0.120 213.927
22 Mexico R. Villagomez Van Amersfoort Racing 15 0

 

   
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