Home Featured Ticktum tops first morning of F2 pre-season testing

Ticktum tops first morning of F2 pre-season testing

by Ida Wood

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Carlin’s Dan Ticktum began Formula 2 pre-season testing Bahrain with the fastest time in the Monday morning session, as drivers opted to spend a lot of time in the pits.

Despite the limited opportunities for testing in F2, only a few drivers set flying laps in hour one of the three-hour session, and after 23 minutes that number had grown to six with MP Motorsport’s Lirim Zendeli on top with a 1m44.095s.

Hitech GP’s Liam Lawson toppled him shortly after with a 1m43.631s, as seven drivers set installation laps to bring the total number of cars that had visited track up to 14.

Only one more driver set an installation lap in the next 25 minutes, and it wasn’t until the final hour of the morning that there was more change at the top as Ticktum went fastest with a 1m43.021s.

His Carlin team-mate Jehan Daruvala leapt up to third, 0.740 seconds behind, with Lawson’s team-mate Juri Vips going fifth fastest. Now 19 of the 22 cars had visited track in some form.

Fast forward to the final half-hour and there was another improvement in the top 10 as reigning FIA Formula 3 champion Oscar Piastri put his Prema-run car in seventh place, and all but fellow Alpine Formula 1 junior Guanyu Zhou had set a timed lap.

Zhou went on track in the final few minutes, when everyone else was in the pits, but the Virtuosi driver only managed to go 16th fastest and was over two seconds off the pace.

Campos Racing’s Ralph Boschung and Gianluca Petecof had also used the near-empty track to set laptimes late on, but they also found it to be of no advantage as they ended up 19th and 20th on the timesheet.

Propping up the order was HWA Racelab’s rookie Alessio Deledda and Prema’s Robert Shwartzman, who like Piastri only went out for a pair of qualifying-style laps and set seven laps in total.

Test results

Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Dan Ticktum Carlin 1m43.021s 14
2 Liam Lawson Hitech GP 1m43.621s +0.600s 17
3 Jehan Daruvala Carlin 1m43.761s +0.740s 15
4 Lirm Zendeli MP Motorsport 1m44.095s +1.074s 35
5 Juri Vips Hitech GP 1m44.143s +1.122s 16
6 Guilherme Samaia Charouz Racing System 1m44.332s +1.311s 31
7 Oscar Piastri Prema 1m44.346s +1.325s 8
8 Bent Viscaal Trident 1m44.408s +1.387s 19
9 Marcus Armstrong DAMS 1m44.480s +1.459s 13
10 David Beckmann Charouz Racing System 1m44.529s +1.508s 31
11 Marino Sato Trident 1m44.620s +1.599s 15
12 Felipe Drugovich Virtuosi Racing 1m44.706s +1.685s 25
13 Richard Verschoor MP Motorsport 1m44.859s +1.838s 38
14 Christian Lundgaard ART Grand Prix 1m44.880s +1.859s 21
15 Theo Pourchaire ART Grand Prix 1m45.038s +2.017s 19
16 Guanyu Zhou Virtuosi Racing 1m45.060s +2.039s 18
17 Roy Nissany DAMS 1m45.471s +2.450s 18
18 Matteo Nannini HWA Racelab 1m45.486s +2.465s 26
19 Ralph Boschung Campos Racing 1m45.496s +2.475s 24
20 Gianluca Petecof Campos Racing 1m46.362s +3.341s 27
21 Alessio Deledda HWA Racelab 1m48.816s +5.795s 28
22 Robert Shwartzman Prema 1m58.546s +15.525s 7