Formula 2: Victor Martin takes pole position for the third time

The weather was beautiful on the first day of the British race weekend, so nothing could stop the teams and Formula 2 drivers from showing high speeds on the fast Silverstone circuit.

Frederic Vesti, Theo Purcher and Ayumu Iwasu, ie the top three of the youth series are not that many points apart, so for each of these drivers the two extra bonus points received by the winner of the qualification were of particular value. Looking ahead, let’s say they didn’t get them.

As the weather was sunny and quite warm, track temperatures were in the high 40s, and given the stress the tires are under in Silverstone’s high-speed corners anyway, it was important to try not to overheat the tyres.

Roy Nissany was the first to show a more or less representative time, with a lap time of less than 1 minute. 42 seconds, but his time was almost immediately blocked by Ayumu Iwasa – he was the fastest during morning practice. However, the speed increased and the qualifying protocol was led by Victor Marten with a score of 1 minute. 40,576 seconds.

French rider ART started from pole at the previous round in Austria and was determined to repeat his success in the UK. Of course the rivals also had serious claims for pole position, but Marten remained on the first line of protocol for a long time as qualifying was interrupted by red flags when just over ten minutes passed from the start of the session. .

This was due to a serious accident by Amaury Kordil, a Belgian driver for Virtuosi Racing. He crashed the car quite badly and although he assured the team over the radio that he himself was fine, the impact on the outer barrier at Copse corner was severe so Amaury was taken to the track’s medical center for an examination. Naturally, the marshals began to evacuate his crippled car and repair the badly damaged fences.

During the enforced break, one of the riders changed tyres, someone decided to stay on soft rubber coiled sets, and when the races resumed, work basically had to be started from scratch. However, the red flags soon reappeared, when no one had yet managed to pick up speed. This time the session stopped because the timing system had to be restarted. But the main thing was different: this was done due to the fact that the session time was reduced by a third! With such a busy weekend schedule, any delay could result in a late start to the next session, and this is the second practice in Formula 1 that should not be allowed.

As a result, the F2 drivers had no time at all to build up and they had to immediately, without much preparation, start attacking and trying to set a good time.

Ayumu Iwasa rode the first sector with the absolute best time and although he made a mistake, he overdid it a bit, he managed to block Marten’s time. However, seven riders took turns ahead of him, including Theo Purscher, the closest rival of the Japanese in the championship. However, the pole stayed with Victor Martin, who drove the circle in 1 minute. 39,832 seconds!

Literally at the last moment of the session, yellow flags appeared in the first sector of the circle, which naturally affected the results, and although Iwasa showed an excellent time in the second sector, he could only rise to third place.

Incidentally, the yellow flags were caused by the fact that for some reason the car of Frederic Vesti, the leader of the individual classification, stopped on the track. However, he remained on the 10th line in qualifying protocol, meaning he would start from pole position in Saturday’s sprint.

And Victor Martin could only be happy that the conditions were in his favor, but he in turn did not blunder in this situation and won pole for the third time this season.

Next to him on the front row of the grid on Sunday is Kusha Maini’s car, with Ayumu Iwasa and Jack Doohan starting from the second row in the weekend’s feature race.