Barcelona F2: Leclerc bags pole with last-gasp lap

Prema Racing’s Leclerc – who also topped practice earlier on Friday – went quickest with a time of 1m29.285 with the last lap of the session.

Leclerc’s improvement prevented Russian Time’s Luca Ghiotto from taking what would have been a maiden pole in F1’s feeder series – rebranded from GP2 for 2017 – as the Italian driver had gone quickest just before the red flags.

Those were brought out when Trident’s Nabil Jeffri stopped his car on the run down from Turn 4 with a mechanical problem with just over five minutes remaining.

Nyck de Vries, who also spent time at the top of timesheets, finished in third place for Rapax, ahead of early pacesetter Jordan King.

Leclerc was only second-quickest after the first runs – which the Prema driver and his teammate Antonio Fuoco completed later than the rest of the field as they opted to wait for the mid-session lull in action – after struggling with oversteer for much of his lap.

But the 19-year-old improved significantly on his final lap to take his second F2 pole in succession.

Alexander Albon finished fifth for ART Grand Prix, ahead of DAMS racer – and Renault F1 development driver – Oliver Rowland.

Norman Nato was seventh-fastest for Arden, with Fuoco eighth and Nicholas Latifi ninth in the second DAMS.

Nobuharu Matsushita rounded out the top ten for ART, as Bahrain feature race winner Artem Markelov qualified down in 13th place.

Former Manor F1 driver Roberto Merhi finished 15th in his first qualifying appearance in F2, where he is competing for Campos at his home event this weekend.

Jeffri – who had been struggling with an alternator problem in practice – ended up in 20th place with the slowest time.

Alex Kalinauckas / Autosport

Qualifying results

Pos.	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap
1	1	Charles Leclerc	Prema Powerteam	7	1'29.285
2	5	Luca Ghiotto	RUSSIAN TIME	10	1'29.478	0.193
3	18	Nyck de Vries	Rapax	10	1'29.550	0.265
4	15	Jordan King	MP Motorsport	9	1'29.585	0.300
5	8	Alexander Albon	ART Grand Prix	10	1'29.732	0.447
6	9	Oliver Rowland	DAMS	9	1'29.744	0.459
7	20	Norman Nato	Arden International	7	1'29.790	0.505
8	2	Antonio Fuoco	Prema Powerteam	8	1'29.834	0.549
9	10	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	9	1'29.885	0.600
10	7	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	9	1'29.975	0.690
11	3	Louis Deletraz	Racing Engineering	10	1'30.046	0.761
12	11	Ralph Boschung	Campos Racing	10	1'30.065	0.780
13	6	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	8	1'30.177	0.892
14	14	Sergio Sette Camara	MP Motorsport	10	1'30.231	0.946
15	12	Roberto Merhi	Campos Racing	8	1'30.389	1.104
16	19	Johnny Cecotto	Rapax	9	1'30.441	1.156
17	21	Sean Gelael	Arden International	9	1'30.772	1.487
18	4	Gustav Malja	Racing Engineering	9	1'30.814	1.529
19	17	Sergio Canamasas	Trident	9	1'31.148	1.863
20	16	Nabil Jeffri	Trident	6	1'32.303	3.018