There is no stopping ART Grand Prix’s George Russell in the 2018 FIA Formula 2 Championship’s qualifying at Silverstone as the Mercedes junior took yet another pole position for the feature race.
Russell started off the session handsomely after topping practice early in the day. The British driver held the top spot before the red flag interruption and kept the lead even after it until Charouz Racing’s Antonio Fuoco displaced him after the first run was completed.
But the ART driver improved further to dip into the 1m39s bracket – the only one to do so – to take his third successive F2 pole with an impressive time of 1m39.989s. DAMS’ Alexander Albon could only do a 1m40.065s for a front-row start.
Fuoco (1m40.094s) did improve on his earlier time but was only third – missing Albon by only 0.029s. Louis Deletraz (1m40.190s) in fourth made it an all-Charouz second row with Carlin securing the third row.
But it is Sergio Sette Camara (1m40.234s) ahead of contender Lando Norris (1m40.396s). Trident’s Arjun Maini (1m40.512s) continued his fine qualifying form to finish seventh with Russian Time’s Artem Markelov (1m40.590s) in eighth after a late improvement.
The Russian’s gain pushed the sole running Campos of Luca Ghiotto (1m40.707s) to ninth after his teammate Roy Nissany stopped early on at Turn 4 to cause the red flag. Arden’s Maximilian Gunther (1m40.786s) rounded the Top 10 from Prema’s Nyck de Vries.
Position 11-20: De Vries, Jack Aitken, Roberto Merghi, Ralph Boschung, Sean Gelael, Nicholas Latifi, Santino Ferrucci, Tadasuke Makino, Nirei Fukuzumi and Nissany.
