Hauger hits the top at the very end of F2’s final post-season test session

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

MP Motorsport’s Dennis Hauger left it late to the top the times in the final session of Formula 2 post-season testing at Yas Marina Circuit.

Rather unusually, Hauger’s transponder was not registering laptimes until late on in the three-hour afternoon session. He had done 30 laps before a laptime appeared next to his name on the timing screens, and it was on his penultimate plap with three-and-a-half minutes to go that he went fastest with a 1m35.996s.

That put him just 0.006 seconds up on Rodin Carlin’s Zane Maloney, who had been in first place for 134 minutes.

Trident’s Christian Mansell, on his first day in a F2 car, was the first driver to top the times, setting a 1m57.987s four minutes into the session. Red flags waved shortly after due to Prema’s Ollie Bearman stopping at turn five, and once the session restarted Mansell improved to 1m55.468s. Bearman later got a warning for crossing the pit exit line, and all drivers got advanced warnings about erratic driving in the pitlane.

Hitech GP’s Amaury Cordeel usurped Mansell after 16 minutes, setting a 1m51.444s, but that laptime was blown out of the water eight seconds later as Prema’s Andrea Kimi Antonelli lowered the pace by over 10s to 1m41.048s.

But he too had a brief time at the top, as 13s later Mansell set a 1m38.886s. He improved to 1m37.602s after 34 minutes, then Maloney set started his lengthy spell as the benchmark driver by setting a 1m37.261s lap 42 minutes into the session.

Three laps later he lowered the pace to 1m37.044s, then left it an hour before another improvement to 1m36.914s. After a cooldown lap, he went on another flyer and improved by 0.541s.

That proved unbeatable until another hour later when Maloney, with 10 minutes to go, set a 1m36.002s.

30 laptimes by 14 drivers deleted for track limits abuse, and of the six drivers who were on track at the very end of testing only Virtuosi Racing’s 10th-placed Gabriel Bortoleto was able to improve as he met the chequered flag on his final lap.

Afternoon session results