Formula 2: Ayumu Iwasa wins wet pole

This year both youth series, Formula 3 and Formula 2, toured Melbourne for the first time in history, and in the case of both, the start of the Australian weekend was not without surprises.

We’ve already mentioned the fact that qualifying in F3 was very dramatic, and then it was F2’s turn to impress the Melbourne crowd, and this was made possible by the weather conditions.

Light rain, which partly accompanied the second practice in Formula 1, increased noticeably at the start of F2 qualifying and everyone took to the track on wet tyres. Australian racer Jack Duane was one of the first to do so and immediately complained to the team about aquaplaning on the radio. From the pits, his father, the famous five-time world champion motorcycle racer Mick Duane, watched with excitement as he ‘floated’ around the track.

“Everything is very bad!” his son continued to commentate on the radio.

Less than five minutes had passed since the start of the session when two cars immediately crashed – Oliver Berman and Jack Crawford, and of course the session was stopped by red flags. Both drivers were able to return to the pits, the Prema and Hitech teams were busy replacing the nose cones of their cars, but there were other incidents, less serious. Arthur Leclerc’s car was flipped, but without consequences.

While the stewards were clearing debris from the track, the rain appeared to have settled down, but before qualifying continued, the FIA ​​decided to first release a medical car onto the track to check the condition of the road surface. check. It was clear to see that there was quite a bit of water on the pavement, but the race management decided to resume the races, and the cars returned to the track 20 minutes after the official start of the session.

Duane Jr. was again one of the first to go and was the first to show at least some lap time – 1’52.238. But soon Isaac Hadjar improved this result by more than two tenths, after which Frederic Vesti completed the circle two seconds faster in one go.

It was clear that until now everyone was only aiming for a difficult city circuit, especially as the cars gradually spread the water and the results steadily improved. Duane was the first to complete the lap faster than 1m50, but Hajjar managed to get under 1m49s. On the next lap, Duane improved the Frenchman’s result by more than a second and Leclerc moved into second place.

However, they were immediately pushed back by Dennis Hauger and Enzo Fittipaldi, but it was clear that their result would not last long either. As proof of this, Duane went even faster the next lap, but the first driver to show a result better than 1min 47sec was not him, but Ayumu Iwasa, a DAMS driver and member of the Red Bull youth program.

However, the fast lap swap continued and ART driver Victor Marten was next to take pole with a score of 1’45.736.

With about ten minutes left until the end of the session, everyone returned to the pits for fresh wet tires and the battle resumed. But the track remained quite wet, so it wasn’t easy to avoid mistakes. For example, the car of Zane Maloney, a Carlin racer, went to the side of the road, but he was able to return to the track.

Iwasa was the luckiest of them all, taking the result to 1’45.118, and no one managed to beat the Japanese’s time as qualifying was stopped by red flags due to Marten’s accident in Turn 5.

The Frenchman crashed the car quite badly and it was clear that the track would have to be put in order for a long time, with less than three minutes left before the end of the session. Therefore, they decided not to resume the races, which meant that Ayumu Iwasa won pole position and would start the race from first position on Sunday.

The second result was shown by Theo Purscher, who has taken 2nd place in the individual ranking so far and is considered one of the main contenders for the title. However, the owner of pole position in F2 gets two bonus points, so after qualifying in Melbourne, Iwasa Pursher pushes down a line and moves up to 2nd.

Of course the early end of qualifying upset many as most of the riders were on their fast laps and could very well have improved Iwasa’s time had conditions not intervened. That same Jack Duane finished in a distant 15th position. It was a shame for him and for many others, but there’s nothing you can do about it.

If no one is penalized and the qualifying results are not judged, Dennis Hauger will start from pole position in Saturday’s sprint and show his tenth result today.

Qualifying results