Home hero Herta tops Miami Formula 2 practice session

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Colton Herta has given himself a confidence boost by topping Formula 2 practice ahead of the series’ debut at the Miami circuit.

The home hero led home ART’s Kush Maini by 0.016 seconds in what was a stop-start session punctuated by incidents which saw both Campos Racing drivers eliminated early on.

With the Miami International Autodrome making it’s debut on the F2 calendar following the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian grands prix, drivers arrived in Florida with no data from the track.

Herta topped the times early on before Trident’s Laurens van Hoepen toppled the American, a 1m41.686s putting him 0.647s clear.

Roman Bilinski was left stuck in the pitlane with engine cover off his DAMS car as he missed the opening half an hour of running, ultimately managing just one lap throughout the session.

It wasn’t long though before the first pause in running. After Sebastian Montoya (Prema) narrowly avoided a huge incident heading out of the final corner, Campos’ Noel Leon stopped at turn 7 after a slow-speed spin left the Mexican stranded on the outside of the track.

A brief virtual safety car period allowed Leon’s car to be removed from the track but, just a minute later, Leon’s teammate Nikola Tsolov found himself stricken on the outside of turn 12 with an apparent technical issue, bringing the red flag out and halting running.

With 25 minutes remaining laptimes began to pick up. Dino Beganovic (DAMS) went top before Herta returned to the front with a 1m41.095s.

Behind Herta came van Hoepen 0.038s adrift with the two Invicta Racing cars of Joshua Duerksen and Rafael Camara slotting in behind.

Rodin’s Alex Dunne found pace to move to the front of the field, becoming the first driver to drop below 1m41s with a 1m40.999s before van Hoepen returned to the front of the field with a 1m40.480s, Duerksen tucking in behind 0.152s adrift.

Drivers continued to push the limits of the 5.412-kilometre circuit, Dunne and Camara both losing time into the turn 14 and 15 chicane while Gabriele Mini went straight on at turn 1 before Kush Maini toppled van Hoepen with a 1m40.336s.

With five minutes remaining Oliver Goethe moved his MP Motorsport car up to fourth before his second lap was impacted by traffic. Just ahead, Herta returned to the top with a 1m40.320s placing him 0.016s clear of Maini.

With drivers still improving the yellow flags flew again, this time for third-placed van Hoepen, the Dutch driver spinning into turn 7 and clipping the barrier, breaking his front wing.

That left Herta to remain at the front of the field, leading Maini and van Hoepen. Beganovic moved up to fourth with Goethe rounding out the top five.

Free practice results