Guanyu Zhou snatched a late pole position for Sunday’s F2 Feature Race as we round up the highlights of Practice and Qualifying.
Zhou recovered from a difficult Practice in which he was only 12th quickest to snatch pole position at the death after a tense Qualifying session, as the grids for Saturday’s first Sprint and Sunday’s Feature Race were set.
Now, here is a full roundup of Friday’s F2 action around the Bahrain International Circuit.
Practice
A quiet start to Practice saw several drivers head out for just an installation lap as Richard Verschoor was the first driver out on track ahead of Marcus Armstrong plus other drivers.
Campos’ Ralph Boschung and Gianluca Petecof soon set the early pace with the former eventually lowering the benchmark to a 1m 46.788, until Carlin’s Dan Ticktum smashed that lap with a 1m 45.554 to go top from Drugovich.
Ticktum soon afterwards improved by less than a tenth of a second on his next flier, only for Drugovich to find 0.510 seconds on his second attempt to post a session topping time of 1m 45.340 just moments later.
Liam Lawson was the fastest rookie as he finished third fastest ahead of Marcus Armstrong, Robert Shwartzman, Lirim Zendeli, Juri Vips and Jehan Daruvala, who round out the top eight ahead of Bent Viscaal and Oscar Piastri.
Several drivers including Zendeli and Piastri however struggled with their braking across various corners, of which Turn 10 was the biggest issue with majority of drivers suffering at least one lock-up on that corner alone.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | Felipe Drugovich | UNI-Virtuosi | 1m 45.340 |
| 2 | Dan Ticktum | Carlin | + 0.141 |
| 3 | Liam Lawson | Hitech GP | + 0.288 |
| 4 | Marcus Armstrong | DAMS | + 0.311 |
| 5 | Robert Shwartzman | PREMA | + 0.326 |
| 6 | Lirim Zendeli | MP Motorsport | + 0.394 |
| 7 | Juri Vips | Hitech GP | + 0.422 |
| 8 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | + 0.423 |
| 9 | Bent Viscaal | Trident | + 0.498 |
| 10 | Oscar Piastri | PREMA | + 0.737 |
| 11 | Theo Pourchaire | ART GP | + 0.809 |
| 12 | Guanyu Zhou | UNI-Virtuosi | + 0.855 |
| 13 | Christian Lundgaard | ART GP | + 0.867 |
| 14 | Roy Nissany | DAMS | + 0.885 |
| 15 | Richard Verschoor | MP Motorsport | + 0.897 |
| 16 | David Beckmann | Charouz | + 1.047 |
| 17 | Guilherme Samaia | Charouz | + 1.245 |
| 18 | Gianluca Petecof | Campos | + 1.257 |
| 19 | Marino Sato | Trident | + 1.378 |
| 20 | Ralph Boschung | Campos | + 1.448 |
| 21 | Matteo Nannini | HWA Racelab | + 2.060 |
| 22 | Alessio Deledda | HWA Racelab | + 3.548 |
Qualifying
A frantic start saw everyone but Guanyu Zhou head out for early opening fliers with Drugovich eventually emerging fastest at the halfway mark, ahead of Christian Lundgaard after the Dane recovered from a tough practice session with a switch from hard to soft tyres.
Daruvala, Shwartzman, Armstrong, Ticktum, Theo Pourchaire, Piastri, Vips and David Beckmann rounded out the top ten after the opening runs, until Zhou set his first flier in the gap to take provision Feature Race pole for Sunday with a 1m 43.293.
Shwartzman however brought a five minute red flag out just before the start of the final fliers with five minutes left, as the Russian’s PREMA came to a halt out of the final corner with a sudden loss of power.
Once the session resumed, Lundgaard produced a 1m 42.851 to seemingly grab pole until Zhou unleashed a last-gasp epic to snatch pole by just 0.003s with a 1m 42.848.
Drugovich had to settle for third ahead of Ticktum, Vips, Richard Verschoor, Daruvala, Piastri, Lawson and Charouz’s David Beckmann, who round out the top ten for Sunday’s Feature Race.
Shwartzman and Pourchaire were the two drivers to drop out of the top ten after the red flags, with Pourchaire initially qualifying 11th for Sunday’s main race ahead of Shwartzman who only managed to cling onto 12th but a post-qualifying penalty promoted both up a position.
Post Qualifying Investigations
Several drivers however were subject to a series of post Qualifying investigations, beginning with Viscaal after his Trident was fired up beyond the pit exit line.
Various drivers also entered the support series paddock towards the end of session which triggered a number of investigations, whilst Zhou was under investigation for passing the checkered flag twice.
All drivers were however later cleared of any wrongdoing but Vips was however disqualified after the undertray fins of his Hitech GP were found to extend 1.5mm below the reference plane in breach of article 4.3.13 of F2 Technical Regulations.
Vips therefore must start tomorrow’s first Sprint Race and Sunday’s Feature Race from the back, whilst Pourchaire consequently inherited reverse pole for tomorrow’s opening race as David Beckmann joins him on the front row.
Lawson and Piastri occupy the second row ahead of Daruvala, Verschoor, Ticktum, Drugovich and Zhou as the top ten qualifiers are reversed for the first Sprint Race.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time |
| 1 | Guanyu Zhou | UNI-Virtuosi | 1m 42.848 |
| 2 | Christian Lundgaard | ART GP | + 0.003 |
| 3 | Felipe Drugovich | UNI-Virtuosi | + 0.363 |
| 4 | Dan Ticktum | Carlin | + 0.490 |
| 5 | Richard Verschoor | MP Motorsport | + 0.595 |
| 6 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | + 0.627 |
| 7 | Oscar Piastri | PREMA | + 0.630 |
| 8 | Liam Lawson | Hitech GP | + 0.671 |
| 9 | David Beckmann | Charouz | + 0.711 |
| 10 | Theo Pourchaire | ART GP | + 0.737 |
| 11 | Robert Shwartzman | PREMA | + 0.846 |
| 12 | Ralph Boschung | Campos | + 0.856 |
| 13 | Marcus Armstrong | DAMS | + 0.881 |
| 14 | Roy Nissany | DAMS | + 0.920 |
| 15 | Bent Viscaal | Trident | + 0.991 |
| 16 | Lirim Zendeli | MP Motorsport | + 1.107 |
| 17 | Guilherme Samaia | Charouz | + 1.379 |
| 18 | Marino Sato | Trident | + 1.806 |
| 19 | Matteo Nannini | HWA Racelab | + 1.977 |
| 20 | Gianluca Petecof | Campos | + 2.205 |
| 21 | Alessio Deledda | HWA Racelab | + 3.419 |
| DSQ | Juri Vips | Hitech GP | + 0.593 |
Leave a Reply