Formula 2: Jack Douhan won pole position in the season finale

The final Formula 2 qualifying session of the season at the Yas Marina Circuit started shortly after the end of Formula 1’s first practice session. Several Youth Series drivers are working with World Championship teams this weekend, and now they have had to quickly adapt to driving with something more familiar to them.technology.

On the other hand, the previous Formula 2 round in Monza took place almost three months ago, and if most of the drivers had virtually no training at this point, then drivers like Theo Pourcher, the leader of the individual competition, and Frederic Vesti, his only real rival in the fight for the title, actively collaborated with Formula 1 teams, which probably gave them some advantage.

But they were the first to claim pole position, apart from Victor Martin, ART racer and Pourcher’s partner. He also had something to fight for: if he performed well in the season finale and scored enough points, he could rise to third place in the individual rankings.

Although this is still in the offing, Victor continued to improve his results for the time being and set a lap of 1:36.351 on his next attempt. The second time, closer to the middle of the session, was shown by Jack Duane, another driver who worked in the F1 training session, as he has been working with the Alpine team for a long time. Moreover, the Australian Virtuosi Racing driver lost less than a tenth to Marten – overall, the results of the top five in the first half of the half-hour qualifying were quite tight, falling within half a second.

But when everyone went to get new tires and prepare for the decisive attack on pole position, neither of the two title contenders was listed on the first five lines of the protocol. Vesti has not yet managed to rise above sixth place and Purcher finished in fourteenth place. Of course it was interesting to see if they could improve in the second half of qualifying.

Moreover, it was fundamental for Frederic Vesti to win pole, as two additional points are awarded for this performance in F2. His lead over Pourcher is still no less than 25 points, which can be regained purely theoretically in one weekend, but in practice it is extremely difficult.

With less than ten minutes to go until the end of the session, the battle for pole continued. Martin’s time was first bettered by Ayumu Iwasa, who is third in the individual competition, and Victor, despite completing a lap faster than in the first half of qualifying, was unable to stay ahead of the Japanese DAMS racer.

But Jack Duane and Kush Maini, a promising Indian pilot whose career was recently taken over by Mika Hakkinen, two-time world champion, succeeded in turn. Both performed their attempts confidently, finishing in 1 minute and 36 seconds.

Literally at the end of the session, Martin managed to move up to second place, while Duen completed a lap in his last attempt with an excellent result of 1:35.567, which gave him pole for Sunday’s race. This is his second achievement this season.

As for the contenders for the title, neither Pourcher nor Vesti could perform convincingly in qualifying – the Frenchman remained 14th and the participant of the Mercedes youth program ended the session with a 9th result, which means that he will not only start from this position start on Sunday, but also in the Saturday sprint.

Although the Dane had completed the lap slightly faster in the decisive attempt, only five hundredths, rising to 8th place, which would have at least given him pole position in the sprint. But in reality, Isaac Hajjar, the French Hitech racer, will start from the first position on Saturday.

In any case, the battle for the top prizes and prizes in the youth championship continues, so both races of the weekend promise to be interesting.

Qualifying results