F2 2020: Sakhir Grand Prix – Friday

Carlin’s Yuki Tsunoda dominated Friday’s F2 action to take pole for 2020 Sakhir Feature Race as the title fight continued to twist and turn with four drivers left in the title hunt. 

In a week when Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin confirmed their promotions to F1 with Haas, focus soon switched to the F2 title battle as five contenders were whittled down to four after a dramatic qualifying session created a mixed grid for the Feature Race.

Now here is a full roundup of Friday’s F2 action across Practice and Qualifying.

 

Practice

A frantic start to the session saw everyone head out to explore the new track layout with Mick Schumacher briefly setting the pace before last weekend’s Feature Race winner, Felipe Drugovich took over with a 1m 03.780 on his second flier before posting an eventual 1m 03.609.

Robert Shwartzman, Luca Ghiotto then Tsunoda got close to the Brazilian’s lap time but with the Japanese finding himself 0.114 seconds slower but managed to find 0.342s on his following flier to go top ahead of Ghiotto before Jehan Daruvala split the pair to make it a Carlin one-two.

Nikita Mazepin who announced his promotion to F1 with Haas earlier this week finished fifth quickest ahead of Marcus Armstrong, Schumacher, Guanyu Zhou, Louis Deletraz and Shwartzman who rounded out the top ten, as drivers struggled with the bumpy section of the outer track.

There however were a few battles along the main straight, particularly with one incident seeing Deletraz and Dan Ticktum going flat out with the latter almost finding himself squeezed into the pit wall, ultimately surviving as Deletraz held inside line through turns one and two to stay ahead.

Majority of drivers soon switched focus to race simulations where lap times were around the 65 second mark with UNI Virtuosi’s Callum Ilott in particular looking fast on his long run, despite finding himself 18th fastest on his practice single lap pace and 0.850s off Tsunoda’s effort.

The field ultimately were spread out by just 1.159s from Tsunoda to Giuliano Alesi who was slowest as HWA Racelab’s Artem Markelov brought the session to an early close, after his engine blew up out of the final corner with four minutes left and spurted oil plus smoke across the track down the main straight.

F2 returnee, Ralph Boschung who is replacing Jack Aitken after the Brit’s promotion to F1 with Williams meanwhile finished his first session back in 14th and 0.747s off Tsunoda’s effort following a year’s absence.

 

Qualifying

Embed from Getty Images

Drugovich led the field out for a frantic opening run in which he locked up at Turn Six to ruin his opening lap but improved on his following two fliers to eventually put himself fourth ahead of the final runs.

Nikita Mazepin meanwhile dueled with ART GP’s Christian Lundgaard for top spot throughout the first two fliers before Tsunoda posted a stunning 1m 02.676 which eventually proved enough for pole position.

Prema opted to run Schumacher and Shwartzman early in the gap with the latter finishing his first run in tenth whilst the championship leader found himself down in 17th, before Markelov embarked on his second run early which saw the Russian go sixth quickest.

Once everyone headed out for their final runs, several drivers failed to improve whereas Shwartzman found time to propel himself up to fourth, although he was ruled out of title contention by failing to take pole.

Ghiotto soon afterwards brought out a six minute red flag after spinning at Turn Three to end his session prematurely with four minutes left, with only Schumacher finding time on his final flier until was impeded through turns Six and Seven to ruin his effort.

Schumacher however tried to pass several cars en route to try and beat the flag so could have a second attempt but squeezed Marino Sato, who lost control trying to rejoin the track ahead of Turn 10 and smashed up the back of Schumacher’s rear to go momentarily airborne before walking away unscathed.

Tsunoda consequently starts the Feature Race on pole from Mazepin, Daruvala, Shwartzman, Drugovich, Lundgaard, Markelov and Dan Ticktum who round out the top eight, ahead of title contender – Callum Ilott in ninth as Louis Deletraz rounded out the top ten.

Schumacher meanwhile is set to start the Feature Race from 18th on grid.

 

Results

Practice

Position	Driver	Team	Time
1	Yuki Tsunoda	Carlin	1m 03.267
2	Jehan Daruvala	Carlin	+ 0.228
3	Luca Ghiotto	Hitech GP	+ 0.315
4	Felipe Drugovich	MP Motorsport	+ 0.342
5	Nikita Mazepin	Hitech GP	+ 0.397
6	Marcus Armstrong	ART GP	+ 0.605
7	Mick Schumacher	Prema	+ 0.609
8	Guanyu Zhou	UNI Virtuosi	+ 0.612
9	Louis Deletraz	Charouz	+ 0.673
10	Robert Shwartzman	Prema	+ 0.699
11	Dan Ticktum	DAMS	+ 0.727
12	Christian Lundgaard	ART GP	+ 0.745
13	Ralph Boschung	Campos	+ 0.747
14	Theo Pourchaire	HWA Racelab	+ 0.793
15	Sean Gelael	DAMS	+ 0.798
16	Pedro Piquet	Charouz	+ 0.798
17	Roy Nissany	Trident	+ 0.837
18	Callum Ilott	UNI Virtuosi	+ 0.850
19	Marino Sato	Trident	+ 0.899
20	Artem Markelov	HWA Racelab	+ 0.985
21	Guilherme Samaia	Campos	+ 1.099
22	Giuliano Alesi	MP Motorsport	+ 1.159

 

Qualifying

Position	Driver	Team	Time
1	Yuki Tsunoda	Carlin	1m 02.676
2	Nikita Mazepin	Hitech GP	+ 0.122
3	Jehan Daruvala	Carlin	+ 0.131
4	Robert Shwartzman	Prema	+ 0.146
5	Felipe Drugovich	MP Motorsport	+ 0.165
6	Christian Lundgaard	ART GP	+ 0.173
7	Artem Markelov	HWA Racelab	+ 0.271
8	Dan Ticktum	DAMS	+ 0.278
9	Callum Ilott	UNI Virtuosi	+ 0.338
10	Louis Deletraz	Charouz	+ 0.386
11	Guanyu Zhou	UNI Virtuosi	+ 0.399
12	Marino Sato	Trident	+ 0.440
13	Pedro Piquet	Charouz	+ 0.471
14	Luca Ghiotto	Hitech GP	+ 0.490
15	Marcus Armstrong	ART GP	+ 0.493
16	Giuliano Alesi	MP Motorsport	+ 0.518
17	Theo Pourchaire	HWA Racelab	+ 0.552
18	Mick Schumacher	Prema	+ 0.594
19	Roy Nissany	Trident	+ 0.641
20	Ralph Boschung	Campos	+ 0.727
21	Guilherme Samaia	Campos	+ 0.876
22	Sean Gelael	DAMS	+ 1.062