Invicta Racing’s Leonardo Fornaroli claims maiden F2 pole

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Leonardo Fornaroli took his maiden Formula 2 pole position in qualifying at Bahrain.

The Invicta Racing driver set the pace early on but was knocked down the order by a late flurry of flying laps. Fornaroli responded with a new personal best, setting a 1m44.008s that went unmatched.

ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins came closest to Fornaroli, ending qualifying 0.155 seconds off pole. He also qualified second in Melbourne, and was second fastest when F2 tested at Bahrain last month.

The 22-car field diverged into two different run plans in the first half of qualifying. Half of the drivers took to the track straight away, while the remainder held back. Of those on track from the off, Fornaroli was fastest, ahead of Martins and Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne.

Roughly one third of the way through the session, the other half of the field left the pits to embark on their first runs. Nobody could match the pace set by Fornaroli, but Campos Racing’s Pepe Marti and MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor jumped to second and third respectively.

In the final minutes of qualifying the whole field embarked on their second runs, and Martins briefly knocked Fornaroli off top spot as he lowered the benchmark time by almost half a second. But Fornaroli was able to respond, qualifying at the front for what is his third race weekend in F2.

Hitech GP’s Luke Browning was next best, improving with his final flying lap and coming 0.284s short of the pace. Dunne was 0.316s back in fourth, ahead of Fornaroli’s team-mate Roman Stanek, Verschoor and Trident’s Sami Meguetounif.

After a strong performance on his first run, Marti could not match others’ gains with his second and ended up in 11th place behind AIX Racing’s Joshua Duerksen. He will start from reversed-grid pole for Saturday’s sprint race, with Hitech’s Dino Beganovic alongside him on the front row.

Qualifying results