Oliver Bearman took feature FIA F2 race pole in Saudi Arabia after beating Kush Maini by just the 0.025s margin, with Jak Crawford in third.
Oliver Bearman had been targeting a rebound from Sakhir and secured pole position in style in a head-to-head fight against Kush Maini. The PREMA Racing driver set a 1:42.217 to beat the Invicta Racing driver to pole by just 0.025s around the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. Jak Crawford made a late improvement to secure third on the grid for DAMS Lucas Oil.
At the start, two preparation laps gave way to the first flying efforts, and it was Bearman who set the pace to beat with a time of 1:43.207. Despite going purple in sectors one and two, Kush Maini filtered through in P2 for Invicta Racing, 0.103s down on the Briton’s time.
There was a larger gap after the top two, with Richard Verschoor leading the next group of runners. The Dutchman set a decent first effort in his Trident, as his time of a 1:43.774 saw him go third-fastest just before the next set of times came through.
Fastest in Practice, Dennis Hauger restored MP Motorsport to the top of the times on his second flying lap, setting a 1:42.946 while Hitech Pulse-Eight’s Paul Aron leapt up to second, 0.060s down. Bearman improved his effort and stayed in the top three ahead of Gabriel Bortoleto and Crawford, who rounded out the top five with half of the session remaining.
Maini and Bearman could hardly be separated throughout the session, but the Invicta driver ended up P2. A return to the pits for fresh supersoft tyres gave way to more fast laps and Roman Stanek of Trident was the first to record an improvement, taking provisional pole with a 1:42.747.
Aron then provided the next best effort, lowering the time to beat until Bearman delivered a 1:42.217 to take the top spot. Maini ran the PREMA Racing driver close but came through just 0.025s down on the top time.
Into the final three minutes and the drivers began their next set of push laps. Crawford lifted his DAMS car to third on his next lap. Bearman bailed on his final lap leaving Maini to finish off his last effort just 0.020s down going into the final sector.
A lock-up into the final corner though prevented any improvement and he had to settle for second. Crawford remained third as Victor Martins and Enzo Fittipaldi improved late on to fourth and fifth respectively. Andrea Kimi Antonelli secured sixth in his second F2 Qualifying session ahead of Hauger, Isack Hadjar, Verschoor and Aron, who will line up on Sprint Race pole on Friday for Hitech Pulse-Eight.
Results: https://x.com/MsportXtra/status/1765762492842508478?s=20
UPDATE: After F1 racer Carlos Sainz was diagnosed with appendicitis, Ferrari has drafted in Bearman to replace him for the rest of the Saudi Arabian GP which means, the Brit will no longer take part in F2 races where Maini now assumes pole position for the feature race.
[Note: The story is as per press release]