Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Campos Racing’s Isack Hadjar set the pace in Formula 2 free practice at the Red Bull Ring.
Prema’s Ollie Bearman was fastest at first, posting a 1m17.011s to lead MP Motorsport’s Dennis Hauger by 0.076 seconds. Virtuosi Racing’s Gabriel Bortoleto bettered Bearman by 0.004s, then there was a big jump in pace as Hitech GP’s championship leader Paul Aron set a 1m16.680s.
Aron’s rivals were then denied the chance to beat him as AIX Racing’s Taylor Barnard stopped on the pit straight and red flags waved. Once his car was out of the way the session restarted with 24 minutes left on the clock, and with Aron, DAMS’ Jak Crawford and ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins the only drivers to have lapped sub-1m17s.
Red Bull junior Hadjar set a 1m16.818s in the session’s second half to go third fastest, then with 18 minutes to go he improved to 1m16.624s to take top spot while Crawford found 0.049s and Martins made a gain of 0.133s but neither gained a position on the timesheet by doing so.
Hadjar lowered the pace further to 1m16.441s as the session entered its final third, with few other drivers improving and several heading to the pits to change tyres. Trident’s Richard Verschoor was briefly in ninth place before Van Amersfoort Racing’s Enzo Fittipaldi and Hauger went seventh and fourth fastest respectively with 12-and-a-half minutes to go.
The track was busy thereon, although Hadjar soon returned to the pits, and with three minutes to go Crawford, Bearman and Trident’s Roman Stanek joined him in the pitlane.
In the final minute Hadjar, Crawford and Bearman headed back out, with Stanek doing so too just before the chequered flag, which proved to be a redundant action since they could not get in a flying lap and those who had remained on track had been unable to improve their pace so the order had gone unchanged.
While half a second covered the top six, there was 0.938s covering the top 19 and many drivers set their fastest laps early on in practice.
Free practice results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Isack Hadjar | Campos Racing | 1m16.441s | 19 | |
| 2 | Paul Aron | Hitech GP | 1m16.680s | +0.239s | 24 |
| 3 | Jak Crawford | DAMS | 1m16.713s | +0.272s | 23 |
| 4 | Dennis Hauger | MP Motorsport | 1m16.719s | +0.278s | 20 |
| 5 | Victor Martins | ART Grand Prix | 1m16.753s | +0.312s | 23 |
| 6 | Gabriel Bortoleto | Virtuosi Racing | 1m16.887s | +0.446s | 24 |
| 7 | Enzo Fittipaldi | Van Amersfoort Racing | 1m16.972s | +0.531s | 23 |
| 8 | Joshua Duerksen | AIX Racing | 1m16.973s | +0.532s | 21 |
| 9 | Ollie Bearman | Prema | 1m17.011s | +0.570s | 23 |
| 10 | Roman Stanek | Trident | 1m17.056s | +0.615s | 22 |
| 11 | Richard Verschoor | Trident | 1m17.057s | +0.616s | 21 |
| 12 | Pepe Marti | Campos Racing | 1m17.060s | +0.619s | 24 |
| 13 | Zane Maloney | Rodin Motorsport | 1m17.062s | +0.621s | 24 |
| 14 | Zak O’Sullivan | ART Grand Prix | 1m17.065s | +0.624s | 23 |
| 15 | Amaury Cordeel | Hitech GP | 1m17.083s | +0.642s | 23 |
| 16 | Franco Colapinto | MP Motorsport | 1m17.088s | +0.647s | 23 |
| 17 | Andrea Kimi Antonelli | Prema | 1m17.180s | +0.739s | 22 |
| 18 | Juan Manuel Correa | DAMS | 1m17.216s | +0.775s | 22 |
| 19 | Taylor Barnard | AIX Racing | 1m17.379s | +0.938s | 19 |
| 20 | Ritomo Miyata | Rodin Motorsport | 1m17.452s | +1.011s | 27 |
| 21 | Rafael Villagomez | Van Amersfoort Racing | 1m17.492s | +1.051s | 24 |
| 22 | Kush Maini | Virtuosi Racing | 1m17.525s | +1.084s | 19 |