Photo: Zak Mauger/FIA Formula 2
Charles Leclerc was nearly half a second clear of the competition at Silverstone as he took his sixth Formula 2 pole position from as many attempts.
The Prema driver was 0.298s ahead after the first runs in front of last year’s Silverstone pole-man Norman Nato, who was able to displace Leclerc by 0.252s after the improvements from the second runs began inside the final five minutes.
Oliver Rowland then briefly grabbed top spot by a narrow margin, but directly behind him on track, Leclerc managed to go 0.458 seconds faster.
Many drivers then returned to the pits rather than attempt any further flying laps on the soft compound tyre, and the top order went unchanged to the chequered flag.
Behind Leclerc, Rowland and Nato held on for second and third: second-in-the-championship Rowland qualified on the front row for the first time this season with DAMS, while third matched Nato’s best so far for Arden, as did fourth for Jordan King with MP Motorsport.
Artem Markelov was fifth in front of Nicholas Latifi and Sergio Canamasas.
Nobuharu Matsushita and Alex Albon salvaged top 10 positions for a muted ART Grand Prix on their second runs, separated by Sergio Sette Camara.
Nyck de Vries and Luca Ghiotto had to settle for 11th and 13th respectively, with Callum Ilott only two places further behind the Italian on his F2 debut for Trident.
After joining team-mate Leclerc on the front row in Austria last weekend, Antonio Fuoco was slowest of all, 2.1 seconds slower.
He was impeded during the first runs by Sean Gelael, something that the Indonesian will be investigated for, and any grid penalty would promote Fuoco as Gelael ended up 19th after aborting his session early with smoke coming from the back of his car.
Fuoco did manage to improve his time at the very end of the session but it wasn’t enough to lift him off the bottom.