#alesi

IN FORM ILOTT TAKES POLE

Callum Ilott took his third pole of the 2020 F2 season at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, seeing off Robert Shwartzman and Guanyu Zhou to take four extra points towards his title campaign.

Behind them, Felipe Drugovich shone for MP in P4, whilst Dan Ticktum topped practice, but was unable to capitalise on this, and will start from P8 tomorrow.

Artem Markelov will start from a season’s best P11 for the struggling HWA team, whilst ART are nowhere, Christian Lundgaard down in P14 and Marcus Armstrong P19.

Roy Nissany, fresh from an FP1 stint with Williams, finished the session in P15, whilst Luca Ghiotto was a shocking P20.

The session started with Nikita Mazepin initially going quickest, but ART’s woeful pace was highlighted by the fact his time was beaten almost immediately by both Trident’s.

Drugovich then went quickest, only to be beaten by Shwartzman, who went P1, Ilott in P2 and Jack Aitken in P3.

Mick Schumacher was the only car who could improve after a cool down lap on the first set of tyres, meaning he was in P3 as the cars returned to the pit lane for fresh rubber.

Guanyu Zhou was the only man to run in the gap, but he narrowly missed out on taking provisional pole by 0.014s.

The third run saw deja vu from F3 with Ilott riding and bouncing over the kerbs, as he stormed to pole with a stunning lap, half a second quicker than anyone else.

Behind Ilott, Drugovich went P2, only to be beaten by Shwartzman yet again, the Russian clearly back on form after struggling at Silverstone

Zhou was the last car to run, again with plenty of space as all the other cars headed back to the pit lane, he went fastest in sector one, and narrowly behind in sector two, but a mistake in sector three on the exit of the Europcar corner saw him end up two tenths behind his teammate and down in P3.

QUALIFYING RESULT:

ILOTT (+4 CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS) SHWARTZMAN ZHOU DRUGOVICH SCHUMACHER TSUNODA AITKEN TICKTUM MAZEPIN DELETRAZ

MARKELOV DARUVALA GELAEL LUNDGAARD NISSANY SATO PIQUET MATSUSHITA ARMSTRONG GHIOTTO

>:D