It was hard to beat Mercedes junior and ART Grand Prix’s George Russell in the 2018 FIA Formula 2 Championship on Friday at Red Bull Ring as the British driver took yet another pole in a commanding run.
It was cloudy in Austria but fortunately the rain stayed away for the F2 drivers to push for pole without any hesitations. Russell took the provisional top spot with a 1m13.932s laptime early in the session.
But there was not stopping the ART driver as he improved further to a 1m13.574s time on his second run. It was not it as he further brought down the time to eventually post a 1m13.541s laptime to take his second consecutive pole after Paul Ricard.
The Mercedes junior had topped the practice session and was the man to beat with both the Carlin drivers just falling short in their second runs as well. However, Lando Norris managed to beat his teammate Sergio Sette Camara.
The McLaren junior posted a 1m13.779s laptime to Camara’s 1m13.823s as they split the two ART drivers with Jack Aitken improving to a 1m13.961s to be fourth. After his radio outburst in the previous round, Trident’s Arjun Maini was back on pace in Spielberg.
The organisers changed his Mecachrome engine post practice after finding genuine issue with his unit. He was only 17th in the practice, but a late improvement in qualifying saw him finish fifth with a time of 1m13.999s.
Arden’s Maximilian Gunther (1m14.014s) also had a good time to be sixth from Charouz Racing System’s Louis Deletraz (1m14.104s), as DAMS’ Alexander Albon (1m14.115s) could only managed an eighth place finish.
Race winner from Paul Ricard, Prema’s Nyck de Vries (1m14.171s) was ninth from Russian Time’s Tadasuke Makino (1m14.201s) as his teammate Artem Markelov (1m14.589s) finished way down in 18th from DAMS’ Nicholas Latifi (1m14.700s).
Positions 11-20: Luca Ghiotto, Roberto Merhi, Antonio Fuoco, Santino Ferrucci, Sean Gelael, Ralph Boschung, Nirei Fukuzumi, Markelov, Latifi and Roy Nissany.