Spa F2: Leclerc dominates rain-hit qualifying

Leclerc beat DAMS duo Nicholas Latifi and Oliver Rowland by six and seven tenths respectively, the Monegasque youngster setting his time of 2m20.842s with 13 minutes left on the clock.

Improvements were scarce after that with rain continuously falling on certain parts of the track, but Latifi managed to better his time in the late stages, narrowly outpacing Rowland.

However, Sergio Sette Camara spun before Pouhon soon afterwards and, with his MP Motorsport car stuck on the track facing the wrong way, the red flags were shown.

With 3m43s left on the clock, there was enough time for the session to be restarted, but only two drivers, Alex Albon and Jordan King, managed to improve.

That left Leclerc with a 0.668s lead over Latifi, as Rowland had to settle for third, nearly escaping crashing on his final flyer as he ran off-track at Rivage.

Gustav Malja claimed fourth, followed by the second Prema car of Antonio Fuoco and Malja's new Racing Engineering teammate Nyck de Vries.

Luca Ghiotto was more than two seconds off the pace in seventh, as Roberto Merhi, who is taking part in his second F2 round of the season with Rapax, was an impressive eighth.

Artem Markelov and Albon completed the top 10, the latter edging out Sette Camara after the chequered flag fell.

Santino Ferrucci was 12th on his second weekend in F2, as Louis Deletraz debuted with Rapax in 13th.

Qualifying results

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Charles Leclerc	Prema Powerteam	2'20.842
2	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	2'21.510	0.668
3	Oliver Rowland	DAMS	2'21.578	0.736
4	Gustav Malja	Racing Engineering	2'22.069	1.227
5	Antonio Fuoco	Prema Powerteam	2'22.073	1.231
6	Nyck de Vries	Racing Engineering	2'22.534	1.692
7	Luca Ghiotto	RUSSIAN TIME	2'22.952	2.110
8	Roberto Merhi	Rapax	2'23.132	2.290
9	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	2'23.180	2.338
10	Alexander Albon	ART Grand Prix	2'23.409	2.567
11	Sergio Sette Camara	MP Motorsport	2'23.424	2.582
12	Santino Ferrucci	Trident	2'23.459	2.617
13	Louis Deletraz	Rapax	2'23.470	2.628
14	Ralph Boschung	Campos Racing	2'23.737	2.895
15	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	2'23.788	2.946
16	Jordan King	MP Motorsport	2'24.127	3.285
17	Robert Visoiu	Campos Racing	2'24.215	3.373
18	Norman Nato	Arden International	2'24.437	3.595
19	Sean Gelael	Arden International	2'25.039	4.197
20	Nabil Jeffri	Trident	2'27.008	6.166