Martins masters the wet in Formula Renault Eurocup Q2 at Spa

Photo: Renault Sport Series

Victor Martins was the pacesetter from the start to the finish in the second Formula Renault Eurocup qualifying session at Spa-Francorchamps.

Early morning rain left the track wet throughout, and while it was expected that the track would drier later on there were no drivers taking chances on leaving it late.

Martins opened proceedings with the fastest lap, ahead of JD Motorsport’s David Vidales, ART Grand Prix team-mate Paul Aron and R-ace GP title rival Caio Collet.

The next time around only Martins improved, with Arden’s Ugo de Wilde moving up to second place and MP Motorsport’s Franco Colapinto into third. These three turned out to be the pole contenders, as Vidales and Collet struggled to find more pace on the damp track.

Arden’s Alex Quinn and MP’s Kas Haverkort briefly interloped in the top three, before Haverkort’s best lap at the time was removed for a track limits violation, and with five minutes left to go of the 20-minute session a 2m35.820s lap from Martins put him almost a second clear.

Colapinto could match Martins in the first sector of the lap but was hitting traffic in the other two, meaning he remained in third when he improved as de Wilde put three personal best sectors together on his final lap to secure second place.

His team-mate Quinn also jumped up to fourth at the very end, pushing Aron down to fifth.

FA Racing’ Amaury Cordeel claimed sixth ahead of Haverkort, Gregoire Saucy (ART), Hadrien David (MP) and Reshad de Gerus (Arden), while R-ace GP and JD struggled to optimise their set-up for the conditions.

Collet’s final lap was his fastest, but left him 2.327s back in 11th place, while Vidales fared even worse in 14th.

Bhaitech’s Lorenzo Colombo will start Friday’s race from last on the grid, as he did not even leave the garage during qualifying.

Qualifying results