Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Roman Stanek scored his second pole position of the Formula 2 season after denying Jak Crawford in the year’s final qualifying session in Abu Dhabi.
Crawford currently holds second place in the championship with three other drivers able to challenge him, and was fastest after the first runs with a time of 1m37.633s, ahead of Joshua Duerksen and Sebastian Montoya.
Montoya went quicker on his next lap to take over at the top, only for Crawford and then Duerksen to do the same. Crawford would get that time deleted for exceeding track limits, leaving him fourth in the middle of the session, with champion Leonardo Fornaroli separating Duerksen and Montoya in second place and his Invicta Racing team-mate Stanek climbing into fifth.
Newly announced Racing Bulls Formula 1 driver Arvid Lindblad had both of his early laps deleted for track limits offences, but set a new and legal benchmark of 1m37.247s on a new set of tyres with six minutes of the session remaining.
That was quickly bettered by Oliver Goethe, who would later have that time deleted but not before Dino Beganovic had matched it to a thousandth of a second.
Montoya then took another turn on top, only for Crawford to edge him out by 0.007 seconds, before Stanek then went almost two tenths quicker than anyone, posting a 1m36.836s.
Crawford would get within 0.087s of Stanek’s pole time as he took second place on his next attempt, while Fornaroli moved up from sixth to third with a further lap at the chequered flag.
Beganovic also found improvement on his second lap to beat Montoya to fourth, with Goethe putting in a new and legal lap to take sixth. Victor Martins was seventh ahead of Duerksen, with Nikola Tsolov qualifying inside the top 10 for the second time in as many rounds, pipping Campos Racing team-mate Lindblad to ninth.
All three of Crawford’s rivals for second place in the championship qualified outside of the top 10, with Alex Dunne 11th, Richard Verschoor 12th and Luke Browning 17th.
Qualifying results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Roman Stanek | Invicta Racing | 1m36.836s | 14 | |
| 2 | Jak Crawford | DAMS | 1m36.923s | +0.087s | 13 |
| 3 | Leonardo Fornaroli | Invicta Racing | 1m36.970s | +0.134s | 13 |
| 4 | Dino Beganovic | Hitech | 1m37.024s | +0.188s | 13 |
| 5 | Sebastian Montoya | Prema Racing | 1m37.040s | +0.204s | 12 |
| 6 | Oliver Goethe | MP Motorsport | 1m37.096s | +0.260s | 12 |
| 7 | Victor Martins | ART Grand Prix | 1m37.129s | +0.293s | 12 |
| 8 | Joshua Duerksen | AIX Racing | 1m37.152s | +0.316s | 12 |
| 9 | Nikola Tsolov | Campos Racing | 1m37.231s | +0.395s | 13 |
| 10 | Arvid Lindblad | Campos Racing | 1m37.247s | +0.411s | 13 |
| 11 | Alex Dunne | Rodin Motorsport | 1m37.329s | +0.493s | 13 |
| 12 | Richard Verschoor | MP Motorsport | 1m37.440s | +0.604s | 12 |
| 13 | Gabriele Mini | Prema Racing | 1m37.485s | +0.649s | 12 |
| 14 | Ritomo Miyata | ART Grand Prix | 1m37.568s | +0.732s | 13 |
| 15 | John Bennett | Van Amersfoort Racing | 1m37.611s | +0.775s | 13 |
| 16 | Rafael Villagomez | Van Amersfoort Racing | 1m37.613s | +0.777s | 13 |
| 17 | Luke Browning | Hitech | 1m37.620s | +0.784s | 13 |
| 18 | Martinius Stenshorne | Rodin Motorsport | 1m37.691s | +0.855s | 13 |
| 19 | Laurens van Hoepen | Trident | 1m37.740s | +0.904s | 13 |
| 20 | Kush Maini | DAMS | 1m37.567s | +0.731s | 12 |
| 21 | Cian Shields | AIX Racing | 1m38.308s | +1.472s | 12 |
| 22 | Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak | Trident | 1m38.841s | +2.005s | 12 |