Martins fastest, Colapinto crashes in F2’s wet Monaco practice session

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins was fastest in Formula 2 free practice in Monaco, which took place on a wet track.

He was the driver to beat for most of the 45-minute session, starting off with a 1m56.110s when he first headed out on Pirelli’s grooved tyres and then quickly improving to 1m40.531s in the first 10 minutes.

His team-mate Zak O’Sullivan briefly usurped him five minutes in, then it was Trident’s Richard Verschoor who was Martins’ closest rival. O’Sullivan returned to second place, but was 1.278 seconds off the pace, and Verschoor improved twice but was shuffled down to fourth by AIX Racing’s Taylor Barnard.

DAMS’ Juan Manuel Correa set a 1m42.001s to go third fastest 13 minutes in, then shortly after Martins lowered the pace to 1m40.200s and was joined by O’Sullivan and Barnard in setting sub-1m41s laps as Prema’s Andrea Kimi Antonelli jumped up to fourth.

MP Motorsport duo Dennis Hauger and Franco Colapinto then disputed third place, with Colapinto breaking into the 1m40s and O’Sullivan dropping to sixth as his fastest lap was deleted. He responded by setting 1m40.746s to return to second, then AIX’s Joshua Duerksen stopped in sector one but there was no yellow flag disruption.

The next lap of Campos Racing’s Isack Hadjar went ahead uncompromised, and he got within 0.498s of Martins. The Alpine junior still had pace in hand, and 17 minutes in set a 1m39.237s to grow his gap at the top back up to 1.461s.

Within a minute it had been reduced by three drivers, but not massively. Hadjar set a 1m40.611s, Verschoor posted a 1m40.138s and then Hauger set a 1m39.838s, 0.601s slower than Martins’ best effort. O’Sullivan was shuffled down to fifth, ahead of Barnard, Colapinto and Antonelli.

Red flags waved moments later as Colapinto hit the wall at La Rascasse, with Van Amersfoort Racing’s Rafael Villagomez having got his first flying lap in just before that, and the session restarted after a six-minute beak with 21 minutes still to go.

Rain earlier in the day had soaked the track, with the driving prior to the red flag stoppage enabling a drier line to form and for pace to improve. Once all cars were in the pits and rain started to fall again, that drier line disappeared.

Most of the field immediately headed back out after the restart, but the rain worsened and eventually everyone returned to the pits with several minutes still left on the clock.

Nobody was able to improve bar VAR’s Enzo Fittipaldi, who had two offs and did not set a flying lap before the stoppage, despite spending plenty of time on track. His fastest laptime at that point was over 26s off the pace, so in the wet conditions he was actually able to improve after the restart and set a 1m46.991s to move himself out of last place and ahead of Duerksen. However they, along with Rodin Motorsport’s Ritomo Miyata, were more than seven seconds slower than Martins.

Free practice results