Formula 2: Pole in Monaco won by Frederic Vesti

Qualifying in Monaco in the youth series takes place in two stages, the riders are divided into two groups, who take turns measuring their strength, and whoever shows the absolute best time gets the pole. But second place on the front row is taken by the rider who came out on top in another group. And so on, until the entire starting square is formed in such a “chess order”.

Victor Marten, the ART pilot, was the first to show a more or less representative result in the first group, but his time was almost immediately blocked by Jehan Daruwala, and each subsequent rider completed his lap faster, but when it was Marten’s turn again was , he returned to the first line with a result of 1:22.244. Isaac Hadjar showed three times and lost almost three tenths to his compatriot.

However, it was clear that this was just the beginning. Richard Fershhor managed to complete his lap in 1:21.639 and was leading the scoresheet just before, when the session was interrupted by Arthur Leclerc’s crash on the circuit’s final corner.

The younger brother of the Scuderia driver and student of the Ferrari Racing Academy, who plays for the DAMS team, exaggerated a bit: he entered the corner at too high a speed, the car destabilized, there was understeer and the front first the left wheel hit the left stop, after which the car tricocheted to the opposite barrier and leaned against it. As a result, the suspension was severely damaged and the track was littered with debris.

But in Monaco, experienced marshals quickly evacuated Leclerc’s wrecked Dallara and quickly removed the wreckage, so the session resumed after about five minutes. But already without a local racer, who, by the way, had moved up to the sixth line at this time.

Jack Duane was the first to beat Fershhor’s time, but Marten was clearly combative and had no intention of relinquishing the intermediate post to anyone: the Frenchman completed the next lap in 1:21.231.

But then there was another accident, this time the car was broken in the 5th corner by Jehan Daruvala, who tried to improve his 4th result, but also clearly made a mistake in choosing the speed.

“Yes!” Victor Marten shouted on the radio with joy when he was informed that the session would not resume, and he was guaranteed to remain the best in the first group.

After a short break, 11 riders from the second group took to the track. As in the first half of the session, they gradually accelerated, but the first relatively fast lap was Ayumu Iwasa, who has been a great addition this year and is performing well overall. But in the previous stage in Baku, nothing went right for him, so in Monaco, the participant of the Red Bull youth program naturally wanted to rehabilitate himself.

Naturally, his time was immediately blocked by three riders at the same time, of which Theo Purscher, the leader of the individual classification, was the best. On the next attempt his result was bettered first by Frederick Vesti and then by Zane Maloney, but Theo went even faster the next lap and returned to the front line with a result of 1:21.354.

Two and a half minutes before the end of qualifying, Vesti drove a lap three tenths faster and it was already a shot at pole: 1:21.053! Can someone improve their result in the remaining time?

We did not have time to get an answer to this question, because Clement Novalak crashed the car on the exit of the 8th turn, ie before the tunnel. Of course, the session was immediately halted by red flags and there was no point in resuming it.

Frederik Vesti did not try to contain his joy and his voice on the radio clearly exceeded Marten’s cry in terms of decibels, which is quite understandable: on Sunday the Danish driver Prema will start from pole position in Monaco, and that is already half the battle . This year he has already won a race in Saudi Arabia and finished second in Baku – if you add the victory in Monaco to these achievements, it is likely that Vesti can lead the individual standings at the end of the weekend.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, because Saturday’s sprint is just around the corner and Isaac Hajjar, an 18-year-old Frenchman who made his debut in Formula 2 this year, will start from pole position.

Qualifying results