F2: Pole went to Jack Crawford by surprise

Formula 2 qualifying at Zandvoort went according to a strange scenario, but even before the drivers had time to drive the first fast laps, curious events began to occur.

The cars of Jack Doohan and Victor Maarten came close to contact at high speed when two Alpine Academy members from different F2 teams started arguing over better track position. Fortunately, there were no consequences, except that Duane spoke very unflatteringly about the Frenchman on the radio.

It was Jack who first showed a more representative time, but then he was blocked by the debutant of the season, Jack Crawford, and at that point there was little doubt that his result (1:21.210) would soon be blocked. Not so much in the first half of the half hour session, Dennis Hauger, Frederick Vesti and the aforementioned Duane lost to him.

But the following happened: after the first 15 minutes, all drivers returned to the pit lane, fitted with new soft tires and the battle for pole resumed. However, the surprises continued immediately: Crawford, exiting the pit lane, got stuck on the front wing of Clement Novalak’s car.

The wing was broken so Jack had to circle around and re-enter the Hitech team’s pits to replace the nose cone. The stewards decided to investigate this incident in the pit lane after the session.

But as soon as the races resumed, they were immediately stopped again by red flags – Jehan Daruvala did not keep the car on the track and flew into the barriers at the third corner. During this session, the session was over for him: not only did the car stop, but it suffered serious damage.

When the red flags were finally removed, the session was less than seven minutes away. All riders (except Daruwala of course) started the decisive attack on pole position, although it is clear that not everyone got real chances.

But no one managed to make it to the end of the fast lap – red flags were flown again, this time due to the departure of Juan Manuel Correa, who clearly overdid it and flew into the gravel safety zone in turn 10 while driving. ahead of Crawford’s schedule.

This promised a very fussy end to the session, as there were less than four minutes available to the participants. On the one hand, this would be enough for a last try; On the other hand, no one managed to bring it to an end. Novalak’s car bounced over a bump, lost stability and came to the side of the road, leaving a long mark on the fenders at the exit of Turn 3.

Race management decided not to resume qualifying and the results remained the same as at the halfway point of the session. That. pole went to Jack Crawford, Dennis Hauger will start next to his car on Sunday, Frederick Vesti and Zane Maloney will start the race from the second row.

But in Saturday’s sprint, Theo Purscher will start the race from pole position, leading the individual classification of the youth series, which showed only the 10th result today. This is the case when the partially reversed starting order really works for him: overtaking is very difficult in Zandvoort and French driver ART has every chance of earning 10 points for winning the short race.

Qualifying results