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Practice report

Monaco F2: Shwartzman leads Ticktum in interrupted practice

Robert Shwartzman emerged fastest in FIA Formula 2 practice after posting a late effort in a heavily interrupted session in Monaco.

Robert Shwartzman, Prema Racing

Robert Shwartzman, Prema Racing

Prema Powerteam

The Prema driver saved his best until the final moments of the 45-minute session, posting an impressive 1m22.423s effort, which proved 0.523s faster than nearest rival Dan Ticktum, who also starred late on.

After three interruptions a flurry of fast times came in the closing stages, with Juri Vips (Hitech Grand Prix) fastest heading into the last five minutes. However, he would have to settle for third just ahead of Felipe Drugovich (UNI Virtuosi) and Bahrain race winner Oscar Piastri (Prema).  

Roy Nissany was the first driver to post a timed lap in the bright and sunny conditions that greeted the drivers. 

The DAMS driver’s 1m35.534s came just moments before the session was halted after 10 minutes when Trident’s Marino Sato came to halt shortly after exiting the pit lane. 

Campos Racing’s Ralph Boschung significantly lowered the benchmark with a 1m27.258s posted shortly after the session restarted.

Times continued to tumble as Drugovich briefly put his UNI-Virtuosi on top before Bochung responded with a 1m24.742s effort.

Drugovich continued his fast start to the session dipping a tenth underneath Boschung’s time at the top of the time sheets.

While Boschung was flying high, the same couldn’t be said of his teammate Gianluca Petecof, who suffered a spectacular engine failure on the run up the hill from St Devote. Clouds of white smoke bellowed from the car before flames emerged from the rear of the Campos, necessitating a second red flag. 

The session resumed with 19 minutes remaining with Drugovich heading Boschung, Ticktum and Nissany but the action only lasted five minutes when officials deployed a Virtual Safety Car period to recover the Trident of Bent Visceral, who ran wide and stopped after nudging the barriers at Rascasse.  

The final 10 minutes saw several improvements as Vips became the first man to dip under the 1m24s bracket. He went on to improve again with another impressive effort having a further six tenths off his time, before Shwartzman came to the fore to ultimately top the times.

After showing strong pace throughout, Boschung ended up sixth ahead of Liam Lawson (Hitech Grand Prix) and countryman Marcus Armstrong (DAMS).

Championship leader Guanyu Zhou was ninth while Nissany rounded out the top 10.

F2 returnee Jack Aitken was 13th fastest for HWA as he stands in for Matteo Nannini.

The F2 field will return to the track later today for qualifying which will be split into two sessions featuring 11 cars each, beginning at 11:20 GMT.

Cars with even numbers will take part in the first 16 minute Group A session while odd numbered cars will participate in the second Group B session.

The results from qualifying will set the grid for Saturday’s feature race while the top 10 will be reversed to form the grid for Friday’s opening sprint race.

Monaco F2 - Practice results:

Cla # Driver Team Time Gap
1 1 Russian Federation Robert Shwartzman
Italy Prema Powerteam 1'22.041
2 5 United Kingdom Dan Ticktum
United Kingdom Carlin 1'22.564 0.523
3 8 Estonia Jüri Vips
United Kingdom HitechGP 1'22.628 0.587
4 4 Brazil Felipe Drugovich
United Kingdom UNI-Virtuosi 1'22.663 0.622
5 2 Australia Oscar Piastri
Italy Prema Powerteam 1'22.980 0.939
6 21 Switzerland Ralph Boschung
Spain Campos Racing 1'23.019 0.978
7 7 New Zealand Liam Lawson
United Kingdom HitechGP 1'23.253 1.212
8 17 New Zealand Marcus Armstrong
France DAMS 1'23.364 1.323
9 3 China Guanyu Zhou
United Kingdom UNI-Virtuosi 1'23.444 1.403
10 16 Israel Roy Nissany
France DAMS 1'23.523 1.482
11 11 Netherlands Richard Verschoor
Netherlands MP Motorsport 1'23.555 1.514
12 12 Germany Lirim Zendeli
Netherlands MP Motorsport 1'23.585 1.544
13 22 United Kingdom Jack Aitken
HWA Racelab 1'23.599 1.558
14 10 France Theo Pourchaire
France ART Grand Prix 1'23.679 1.638
15 6 India Jehan Daruvala
United Kingdom Carlin 1'23.829 1.788
16 14 Germany David Beckmann
Czech Republic Charouz Racing System 1'24.014 1.973
17 15 Brazil Guilherme Samaia
Czech Republic Charouz Racing System 1'24.748 2.707
18 9 Denmark Christian Lundgaard
France ART Grand Prix 1'25.418 3.377
19 20 Brazil Gianluca Petecof
Spain Campos Racing 1'25.993 3.952
20 24 Netherlands Bent Viscaal
Italy Trident 1'28.896 6.855
21 23 Italy Alessio Deledda
HWA Racelab 1'29.355 7.314
22 25 Japan Marino Sato
Italy Trident

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