After the first seven stages of the Formula 2 season, the battle for leadership in the individual championship of the youth series has become noticeably more intense. Although Paul Aron, the Estonian Hitech driver, was still in first place, his lead was reduced to 11 points, and in this situation every earned bonus point counts.
Since there are two bonus points awarded for pole position in F2, it also makes sense to fight for the win in qualifying. However, pole position is always the most advantageous position, and on the high-speed Silverstone circuit it is not so easy to overtake, so everyone had something to fight for, especially the season favourites.
Franco Colapinto, Isaac Hajjar and Oliver Berman were probably in the best mood at the start of the British weekend, as they all took part in Formula 1 practice and the Briton was the hero of yesterday’s news, as was his contract with Haas F1.
Whether such a warm-up would help them should have become clear during the half-hour qualifying session. Because there was a risk that the fickle English weather would disrupt the session, we had to hurry and show a good time right away.
Dennis Hauger was the first to do so, but his result was immediately surpassed by Kush Maini and Berman – the British Prema racer lapped in 1:40.918. And in the replay it was clear that Hauger could have done a better lap, but made a mistake in the final corners.
At the same time, Aron moved up to the second line of the protocol, losing only 0.04 seconds to Berman – this was of course also a request for pole, but the question is whether it will rain towards the end of the session and whether the competitors will be able to improve in subsequent attempts.
But so far nothing stood in the way of continuing the qualifying races, the drivers drove more and more confidently, showed higher and higher speeds, and Berman’s time was surpassed by several of his rivals, and Aron rose to first place with a result of 1:40.181.
As usual, everyone returned to the pits at the end of the first half of the session for new tyres and then made a decisive attack on pole position. Track work resumed with less than ten minutes to go in qualifying.
Oddly enough, Paul Aron made an atypical mistake when leaving the pits: his car spun several times on locked wheels and he slowly returned to the pits on a damaged set of soft tyres.
Of course, most riders managed to better the Estonian’s time and Isaac Hadjar, his main rival, climbed to the first place: the Frenchman lapped in 1:39.368! Seven others managed to set a time better than 1 minute and 40 seconds, including Victor Martin, Dennis Hauger, Franco Colapinto, Oliver Berman and Gabriel Bortoleto.
It was unclear whether Aron would be able to make another attempt – time expired and he remained in the pits, despite being only 12th at this stage of the session. In general, the Estonian never returned to the track and the Campos Racing team congratulated their driver, Isaac Hadjar, on his first pole position of the season. Of course, he was awarded two bonus points, which allowed him to close the gap to the leader in the personal standings to 9 points.
Following the qualifying results, Victor Martin will start Sunday’s race from the front row, Dennis Hauger and Franco Colapinto will start in third and fourth place, and Dallara’s Oliver Berman will finish in fifth place.
At the same time, Kimi Antonelli, his Prema team-mate who posted the 10th fastest time today, will start from pole in Saturday’s sprint.
The results are being prepared…
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
