After a fortnight in the Styrian mountains of Spielberg, Formula Two made the trip across to Hungary for the opening day of the third round of their 2020 season.
Prema’s Robert Shwartzman entered this round as championship leader but rain played a massive role in the day’s events across practice and qualifying as we bring the roundup of both sessions.
Practice
Embed from Getty ImagesRain greeted drivers at the start of practice with several struggling to build temperature in the tyres, until race control declared the track wet just as Dan Ticktum spun out of the penultimate corner.
Everyone quickly took to the pits until Felipe Drugovich and Artem Markelov ventured out to explore conditions, with Markelov setting the early pace until his HWA Racelab teammate, Giuliano Alesi posted a session topping 1m 42.926 in the 27th minute.
MP Motorsport, Trident and Campos were the only other teams to send both drivers back out on track, alongside HWA Racelab which paid dividends for Campos when Jack Aitken posted the second fastest time shortly before the flag.
Alesi therefore finished fastest by 1.174s from Aitken with Marino Sato, Markelov, Louis Deletraz, Guilherme Samaia, Roy Nissany and the two MP Motorsport cars of Drugovich and Nobuharu Matsushita who rounded out the nine drivers to post a lap time.
Everyone else including championship leader, Shwartzman of Prema instead opted to sit the rest of session out once the rain increased in intensity, without setting a lap time.
Qualifying
Embed from Getty ImagesQualifying saw wet conditions again greet the drivers as Yuki Tsunoda led the field out, whilst Uni-Virtuosi warned Guanyu Zhou that further rain was on its way and to try and bank in an early lap.
Samaia however caused an early stoppage after spinning on the exit of turn four and stalling the car, with the session resuming four minutes after the red flag was shown.
Luca Ghiotto and Louis Deletraz traded fastest laps early on once the session resumed until ART GP’s Christian Lundgaard leapt to the top of the timesheet with a 1m 51.729.
Schumacher then Ghiotto snatched the fastest time until Callum Ilott who had opted to run longer, produced a stunning 1m 50.767 to clinch an eventual second F2 pole with ten minutes left.
Embed from Getty ImagesEveryone then returned to pits to quickly prepare for their final runs which was curtailed with four minutes left, when Jehan Daruvala spun and beached his car in the gravel on the exit of turn eight.
Stewards then decided that with little time left, it was unlikely that anyone would improve so declared that the session wouldn’t be restarted, putting Ilott on pole from Ghiotto and Zhou.
Ticktum qualified an impressive fourth ahead of Schumacher, Lundgaard, Armstrong, Aitken, Sean Gelael and Alesi who round out the top ten.
Results
Practice
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | Giuliano Alesi | HWA Racelab | 1m 45.926 |
| 2 | Jack Aitken | Campos | + 1.174 |
| 3 | Marino Sato | Trident | + 1.738 |
| 4 | Artem Markelov | HWA Racelab | + 1.800 |
| 5 | Louis Deletraz | Charouz | + 1.860 |
| 6 | Guilherme Samaia | Campos | + 3.203 |
| 7 | Roy Nissany | Trident | + 3.471 |
| 8 | Felipe Drugovich | MP Motorsport | + 4.487 |
| 9 | Nobuharu Matsushita | MP Motorsport | + 15.386 |
| 10 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | No Time Set |
| 11 | Yuki Tsunoda | Carlin | No Time Set |
| 12 | Christian Lundgaard | ART GP | No Time Set |
| 13 | Nikita Mazepin | Hitech GP | No Time Set |
| 14 | Guanyu Zhou | Uni-Virtuosi | No Time Set |
| 15 | Dan Ticktum | DAMS | No Time Set |
| 16 | Luca Ghiotto | Hitech GP | No Time Set |
| 17 | Armstrong | ART GP | No Time Set |
| 18 | Pedro Piquet | Charouz | No Time Set |
| 19 | Mick Schumacher | Prema | No Time Set |
| 20 | Callum Ilott | Uni-Virtuosi | No Time Set |
| 21 | Sean Gelael | DAMS | No Time Set |
| 22 | Robert Shwartzman | Prema | No Time Set |
Qualifying
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | Callum Ilott | Uni-Virtuosi | 1m 50.767 |
| 2 | Luca Ghiotto | Hitech GP | + 0.308 |
| 3 | Guanyu Zhou | Uni-Virtuosi | + 0.523 |
| 4 | Dan Ticktum | DAMS | + 0.612 |
| 5 | Mick Schumacher | Prema | + 0.817 |
| 6 | Christian Lundgaard | ART GP | + 0.962 |
| 7 | Marcus Armstrong | ART GP | + 1.195 |
| 8 | Jack Aitken | Campos | + 1.729 |
| 9 | Sean Gelael | DAMS | + 1.733 |
| 10 | Giuliano Alesi | HWA Racelab | + 1.800 |
| 11 | Robert Shwartzman | Prema | + 1.948 |
| 12 | Louis Deletraz | Charouz | + 1.962 |
| 13 | Pedro Piquet | Charouz | + 2.103 |
| 14 | Yuki Tsunoda | Carlin | + 2.448 |
| 15 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | + 2.521 |
| 16 | Nikita Mazepin | Hitech GP | + 2.695 |
| 17 | Artem Markelov | HWA Racelab | + 2.802 |
| 18 | Felipe Drugovich | MP Motorsport | + 2.816 |
| 19 | Marino Sato | Trident | + 2.891 |
| 20 | Roy Nissany | Trident | + 3.969 |
| 21 | Nobuharu Matsushita | MP Motorsport | + 5.102 |
| 22 | Guilherme Samaia | Campos | No Time Set |
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