Aron beats his F2 title rivals at Spa to take third pole of 2024

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Hitech GP’s Paul Aron won a fight with his title rivals for Formula 2 pole in Spa-Francorchamps qualifying.

Half of the field headed out straight away when the 30-minute session began, and the first laptimes came five minutes in.

AIX Racing’s Taylor Barnard set a 2m25.633s to lead team-mate Joshua Duerksen, Trident’s Roman Stanek and Richard Verschoor, and Prema’s Andrea Kimji Antonelli.

Aron went to the top 20 seconds later, with yellow flags appearing as ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins trundled around the track. There was no sign of external damage to his car, with seemingly a technical issue then leading to him stopping and causing race control to red flag the session.

Martins tried jump-starting his car, lurching it briefly forward before giving up and being consigned to starting last on the grid for both races pending any penalties.

The clock stopped six minutes in, and qualifying restarted six minutes later with 13 drivers having already set laps.

It was a third of the way into the session when the next laptimes came in, and Duerksen set a 1m59.072s to go fastest. He was immediately beaten by Campos Racing’s Pepe Marti, then Prema’s Ollie Bearman before Aron lowered the pace further to 1m57.905s.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Enzo Fittipaldi slotted into third a minute later, but was quickly shuffled down to eighth as Campos’s Isack Hadjar set a new 1m57.803s benchmark, Antonelli improved to third and Rodin Motorsport’s Zane Maloney and DAMS’ Jak Crawford went fourth and fifth fastest.

Next to make it into the top three was Virtuosi Racing’s Gabriel Bortoleto, who set a 1m57.927s, then on the next laps nobody was able to improve and many returned to the pits.

MP Motorsport’s Dennis Hauger and Franco Colapinto were the first to start their second runs, and both improved. Virtuosi’s Kush Maini joined them on track and also set a new personal best to go fifth fastest, with Colapinto sixth and Hauger eighth. All three were in the pits with 10 minutes to, but Hauger soon headed back out and was followed by the whole field bar Martins.

But on a busy track nobody was able to improve until the final three minutes when everyone did bar Stanek. Aron went to the top with a 1m56.959s, Bortoleto set a 1m57.127s to rise to second, Hadjar fell to third, Crawford pipped Antonelli to fourth and Maloney dropped to sixth ahead of Colapinto, Verschoor, Hauger and Hitech’s Amaury Cordeel.

Everyone then slowed down, trying to get to the back of a queue to avoid providing their rivals with a slipstream, with some even being classified as stopped on track on their GPS traces.

Aron was the first to take the chequered flag and did not improve, but neither did his rivals and pole was secured. Colapinto set a personal best but stayed in seventh, ART GP’s Zak O’Sullivan improved to 10th and Fittipaldi climbed to 12th.

Qualifying results