ART Grand Prix’s Nyck de Vries beats DAMS’ Nicholas Latifi to feature race pole in FIA Formula 2 (F2) Championship at Sochi.
It was F2 title contender DAMS’ Nicholas Latifi with provisional pole for Sochi feature race from points leader ART Grand Prix’s Nyck de Vries with UNI-Virtuosi Racing’s Luca Ghiotto in third.
There was an incident between Campos Racing’s Jack Aitken and Trident’s Giuliano Alesi early in the session which will be investigated after the session. Aitken had a broken front wing but managed to get back out.
He was seventh after initial run with Alesi setting 15th fastest time. While everyone pitted, Carlin’s Nobuharu Matsushita ran an alternate strategy as the Japanese racer set a sixth quickest time.
The second run had de Vries back in front with the Dutchman setting 1m47.440s lap to clinch F2 pole with Latifi (1m47.700s) second and Sauber Junior Team by Charouz’s Callum Ilott (1m47.737s) climbing up to third.
Ghiotto (1m47.767s) dropped to fourth with teammate Guanyu Zhou (1m47.873s) fifth from DAMS’ Sergio Sette Camara (1m48.031s) as Carlin’s Louis Deletraz (1m48.188s) slotted in seventh.
ART Grand Prix’s Nikita Mazepin (1m48.226s) was eighth as the Top 10 was rounded out by MP Motorsport’s Jordan King (1m48.320s) and Matsushita (1m48.396s), with the Japanese only losing four places.
Position 11-20: Mick Schumacher, Aitken, Sean Gelael, Alesi, Ralph Boschung, Artem Markelov, Matevos Isaakyan, Tatiana Calderon, Marino Sato and Mahaveer Raghunathan.