Hungary F2: Leclerc breaks record for consecutive poles
Ferrari junior Charles Leclerc claimed a seventh consecutive Formula 2 pole position at the Hungaroring, topping qualifying by nearly half a second.
Photo by: FIA Formula 2
Leclerc's perfect qualifying record looked under threat when the Ferrari junior's flyer, which he intended to set in the middle of the session while the rest was in the pits, was interrupted by a red flag caused by Sean Gelael, who was on the same strategy, spinning at Turn 1.
Undisturbed, Leclerc went out and immediately lowered the benchmark by nearly half a second when the session was back to green.
Soon after he set his time, a little smoke came out from behind his wheel, but the Monegasque driver continued seemingly unaffected.
As the field couldn't close the gap for the rest of the session and Leclerc didn't improve either, his 1m26.268s stood as his seventh consecutive pole time of the season.
Rowland took second, as the Briton's final flyer was ruined by a massive oversteer moment, which he impressively corrected.
Russian Time driver Artem Markelov jumped up to third with a late improvement, demoting Jordan King to fourth.
Leclerc's teammate Antonio Fuoco took fifth ahead of Nicholas Latifi and Nyck de Vries.
F2 debutant Santino Ferrucci, a Haas F1 development driver, took 11th, beating his teammate Nabil Jeffri by more than a second.
Alex Albon, who also tried to set a time in the middle of the session, was 12th, followed by Luca Ghiotto, who had the same incident as Rowland, but couldn't avoid touching the grass.
Latifi and Sergio Sette Camara, seventh and 16th respectively, are under investigation for having possibly impeded their rivals.
Qualifying results
Cla | Driver | Team | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Charles Leclerc | Prema Powerteam | 1'26.268 | |
2 | Oliver Rowland | DAMS | 1'26.731 | 0.463 |
3 | Artem Markelov | RUSSIAN TIME | 1'26.806 | 0.538 |
4 | Jordan King | MP Motorsport | 1'26.849 | 0.581 |
5 | Antonio Fuoco | Prema Powerteam | 1'26.885 | 0.617 |
6 | Norman Nato | Arden International | 1'26.968 | 0.700 |
7 | Nicholas Latifi | DAMS | 1'26.973 | 0.705 |
8 | Nyck de Vries | Rapax | 1'27.026 | 0.758 |
9 | Nobuharu Matsushita | ART Grand Prix | 1'27.103 | 0.835 |
10 | Sergio Canamasas | Rapax | 1'27.129 | 0.861 |
11 | Santino Ferrucci | Trident | 1'27.139 | 0.871 |
12 | Alexander Albon | ART Grand Prix | 1'27.221 | 0.953 |
13 | Luca Ghiotto | RUSSIAN TIME | 1'27.238 | 0.970 |
14 | Robert Visoiu | Campos Racing | 1'27.301 | 1.033 |
15 | Ralph Boschung | Campos Racing | 1'27.339 | 1.071 |
16 | Sergio Sette Camara | MP Motorsport | 1'27.492 | 1.224 |
17 | Louis Deletraz | Racing Engineering | 1'27.582 | 1.314 |
18 | Gustav Malja | Racing Engineering | 1'27.804 | 1.536 |
19 | Nabil Jeffri | Trident | 1'28.248 | 1.980 |
20 | Sean Gelael | Arden International | 1'46.783 | 20.515 |
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