In an exciting event at the Red Bull Ring, the Mexican driver Noel Leon, from Campos Racing, has achieved his first pole position in Formula 2. Leon surpassed Alex Dunne thanks to a risky strategy from his team, demonstrating his ability to take advantage of track conditions.
Leon started the session with a lot of energy, initially leading alongside his teammate, Nikola Tsolov. With a time of 1m16.283s, he maintained a tight margin of just 0.015s over the Bulgarian, showing great pace from the very first minutes of the session.
The Mexican driver quickly improved his time, extending his lead to 0.179s before Rafael Camara from Invicta Racing set a new benchmark with a time of 1m16.062s. Despite this, Leon chose to stay on track while most of his rivals returned to the pits, a decision that paid off. He regained the lead with a spectacular time of 1m15.544s, pulling away 0.508s from his Brazilian competitor.
After marking his best time, Leon had to watch from the pit area as the rest of the drivers got back into action. Dunne achieved a strong position with a time of 1m15.673s, only 0.129s behind Leon. Tsolov completed the initial podium with 1m15.730s, while the championship leader, Gabriele Mini, overtook Camara to secure a good position.
Leon proved to be untouchable, using a strategy similar to that seen in the qualifying session of the FIA Formula 3 to secure his first pole in Formula 2.
In other results, Sebastian Montoya secured the reversed grid pole for the Saturday race with Prema Racing, while John Bennett from Trident finished ninth, along with Rafael Villagomez from Van Amersfoort, who took third place in the reversed grid.
Qualification Results
Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Noel Leon Campos Racing 1m15.544s 12
2 Alex Dunne Rodin Motorsport 1m15.673s +0.129s 15
3 Nikola Tsolov Campos Racing 1m15.730s +0.186s 13
4 Gabriele Mini MP Motorsport 1m15.769s +0.225s 14
5 Rafael Camara Invicta Racing 1m15.784s +0.240s 14
6 Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak ART Grand Prix 1m15.799s +0.255s 14
7 Oliver Goethe MP Motorsport 1m15.857s +0.313s 13
8 Rafael Villagomez Van Amersfoort Racing 1m15.863s +0.319s 13
9 John Bennett Trident 1m15.896s +0.352s 16
10 Sebastian Montoya Prema Racing 1m15.955s +0.411s 16
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
SourceID: SRC_92345c5dd481ab1b40454ccbd7078e62d8d59c87