Red Bull Ring F2: Leclerc scores fifth straight pole

Leclerc, who had also topped the day’s earlier practice session at the Austrian track, headed the times after the F2 field had completed their first qualifying runs using the super-soft Pirelli tyres in the 30-minute session.

After a long gap of little action as the clouds grew darker over the circuit, the pack emerged and a flurry of improvements took place.

Sette Camara improved his personal best to grab the top spot from ART Grand Prix’s Alexander Albon – who is racing despite nursing a collarbone injury – before Leclerc put in a lap of 1m13.396s to seize his fifth F2 pole of 2017 by 0.3s.

Leclerc’s Prema Racing teammate and fellow Ferrari F1 junior, Antonio Fuoco, completed the top three.

Albon wound up fourth in his first qualifying session since the Monaco round of the series in May, with British driver Oliver Rowland – who is second in the drivers’ championship – fifth for DAMS.

Nobuharu Matsushita was sixth ahead of McLaren F1 junior Nyck de Vries, Luca Ghiotto and Nicholas Latifi.

Norman Nato rounded out the top 10 for Arden International.

Bahrain feature race winner Artem Markelov, who is third in the points standings, ended up 15th.

The Russian Time driver had set a personal best first sector on his final lap in the closing moments of the session but he was forced to abandon it after Sette Camara beached his car in the gravel trap on the exit of the rapid Turn 8 right-hander.

MP Motosport’s Jordan King qualified 13th, while series returnee Raffaele Marciello – the only driver to run during the long quiet spell in the middle of the session – finished 17th on his return to the F1 support series.

Qualifying results

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap
1	1	Charles Leclerc	Prema Powerteam	14	1'13.396
2	14	Sergio Sette Camara	MP Motorsport	13	1'13.736	0.340
3	2	Antonio Fuoco	Prema Powerteam	14	1'13.776	0.380
4	8	Alexander Albon	ART Grand Prix	15	1'13.888	0.492
5	9	Oliver Rowland	DAMS	14	1'13.903	0.507
6	7	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	14	1'13.922	0.526
7	18	Nyck de Vries	Rapax	15	1'14.034	0.638
8	5	Luca Ghiotto	RUSSIAN TIME	14	1'14.180	0.784
9	10	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	14	1'14.193	0.797
10	20	Norman Nato	Arden International	14	1'14.203	0.807
11	11	Ralph Boschung	Campos Racing	16	1'14.363	0.967
12	3	Louis Deletraz	Racing Engineering	16	1'14.377	0.981
13	15	Jordan King	MP Motorsport	14	1'14.384	0.988
14	19	Sergio Canamasas	Rapax	15	1'14.489	1.093
15	6	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	16	1'14.534	1.138
16	21	Sean Gelael	Arden International	15	1'14.555	1.159
17	17	Raffaele Marciello	Trident	14	1'14.643	1.247
18	12	Robert Visoiu	Campos Racing	15	1'14.653	1.257
19	16	Nabil Jeffri	Trident	17	1'14.672	1.276
20	4	Gustav Malja	Racing Engineering	16	1'15.121	1.725