ART Grand Prix’s George Russell took his maiden pole in the 2018 FIA Formula 2 Championship at Paul Ricard ahead DAMS’ Alexander Albon and points leader Carlin’s Lando Norris.
The Mercedes junior started off the weekend on a good note by taking his first pole after he was beaten in the practice session early in the day by Carlin’s Lando Norris. Russell topped the first half and improved further on his second run to set an unbeatable 1m44.469s time.
Albon improved to second with a 1m44.635s laptime while Norris jumped to third from seventh with a 1m44.781s time. Behind him was his teammate and the returning Sergio Sette Camara after his best time of 1m45.092s.
Campos’ Luca Ghiotto (1m45.109s) remained in the Top 5 after his improvement with ART’s Jack Aitken (1m45.143s) in sixth leading Russian Time and fellow Renault junior Artem Markelov (1m45.250s).
A disappointed Prema’s Nyck de Vries (1m45.269s) finished only eighth, ahead of Charouz Racing’s Louis Deletraz (1m45.278s) with DAMS’ Nicholas Latifi (1m45.482s) rounding out the Top 10 finishers.
Positions 11-20: Maximilian Gunther (1m45.608s), Sean Gelael (1m45.721s), Santino Ferrucci (1m45.739s), Roberto Merhi (1m45.753s), Antonio Fuoco (1m45.919s), Tadasuke Makino (1m45.945s), Arjun Maini (1m46.021s), Nirei Fukuzumi (1m46.060s), Roy Nissany (1m46.150s) and Ralph Boschung (1m46.500s).