Silverstone F2: Leclerc maintains perfect qualifying streak
Ferrari F1 junior Charles Leclerc remained unbeaten in qualifying in the 2017 Formula 2 season, after collecting his sixth pole at Silverstone.
Photo by: FIA Formula 2
In claiming his sixth pole in a row, Leclerc equalled the record set by Stoffel Vandoorne in F2's predecessor series GP2, as the Belgian managed six consecutive poles between the latter stages of the 2014 season and the start of his title-winning 2015 campaign.
Leclerc led the way during the mid-session pitstops, heading Arden's Norman Nato by two and a half tenths.
Nato was first to improve as the final flyers started and took the lead before being narrowly demoted by Oliver Rowland.
Leclerc then lowered the benchmark by 0.458s, his 1m38.427s earning him pole position.
Rowland and Nato had to settle for second and third, separated by two hundredths of a second.
MP Motorsport's Jordan King was fourth, followed by Artem Markelov and Rowland's DAMS teammate Nicholas Latifi.
Sergio Canamasas, Nobuharu Matsushita and Sergio Sette Camara were the last three drivers to end up less than a second off the pace in seventh, eighth and ninth respectively.
Alexander Albon, who ran briefly off-track late in the session, rounded out the top 10.
European F3 title contender and F2 debutant Callum Ilott took 15th, beating his Trident teammate Nabil Jeffri by 0.458s.
While one Ferrari junior led the way, another closed the order as Leclerc's teammate Antonio Fuoco endured a difficult qualifying.
He ran off track and then was impeded by Sean Gelael in the early stages of the session, for which the Indonesian is under investigation.
Fuoco then was unable to make a significant improvement in the second half of the qualifying, and ended up last, more than two seconds slower than Leclerc.
UPDATE: Albon received a three-place grid penalty for impeding Jeffri, dropping the ART driver to 13th. The penalty promoted Nyck de Vries into the top 10.
Qualifying results:
Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Charles Leclerc | Prema Powerteam | 1'38.427 | |
2 | Oliver Rowland | DAMS | 1'38.885 | 0.458 |
3 | Norman Nato | Arden International | 1'38.906 | 0.479 |
4 | Jordan King | MP Motorsport | 1'38.988 | 0.561 |
5 | Artem Markelov | RUSSIAN TIME | 1'39.062 | 0.635 |
6 | Nicholas Latifi | DAMS | 1'39.138 | 0.711 |
7 | Sergio Canamasas | Rapax | 1'39.368 | 0.941 |
8 | Nobuharu Matsushita | ART Grand Prix | 1'39.405 | 0.978 |
9 | Sergio Sette Camara | MP Motorsport | 1'39.413 | 0.986 |
10 | Nyck de Vries | Rapax | 1'39.594 | 1.167 |
11 | Gustav Malja | Racing Engineering | 1'39.879 | 1.452 |
12 | Luca Ghiotto | RUSSIAN TIME | 1'39.959 | 1.532 |
13 | Alexander Albon* | ART Grand Prix | 1'39.566 | 1.139 |
14 | Louis Deletraz | Racing Engineering | 1'39.966 | 1.539 |
15 | Callum Ilott | Trident | 1'39.996 | 1.569 |
16 | Ralph Boschung | Campos Racing | 1'40.394 | 1.967 |
17 | Robert Visoiu | Campos Racing | 1'40.412 | 1.985 |
18 | Nabil Jeffri | Trident | 1'40.454 | 2.027 |
19 | Sean Gelael | Arden International | 1'40.478 | 2.051 |
20 | Antonio Fuoco | Prema Powerteam | 1'40.568 | 2.141 |
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