Home Featured F2 points leader Nicholas Latifi tops Monaco practice

F2 points leader Nicholas Latifi tops Monaco practice

by Josh Suttill

Photo: FIA Formula 2

Formula 2 championship leader Nicholas Latifi was fastest for DAMS in free practice for the fourth round of the season in Monaco.

Latifi topped the session with a 1m21.887s, which would have been good enough for fourth on the grid last year.

The 23-year-old was 0.114 seconds quicker than ART Grand Prix’s Nyck de Vries, who won last time out at Barcelona and is third in the standings.

Luca Ghiotto, who has taken two of the last three pole positions and is sandwiched by the pair in the points, completed the top three on track for Virtuosi Racing.

Fourth quickest was Latifi’s team-mate Sergio Sette Camara, who was withdrawn from the Monaco races last year after sustaining an injury during a qualifying crash.

Campos Racing’s Jack Aitken was fifth fastest ahead of Sauber junior Callum Ilott and the second Campos car of Dorian Boccolacci. Carlin’s Louis Deletraz was eighth, with Sean Gelael and GP3 champion Anthoine Hubert rounding out the top 10 for Prema and Arden.

Deletraz’s team-mate Nobuharu Matsushita lost half of his session when he ground to a halt on the exit of the hairpin.

On his return to the series, two-time Monaco feature race winner Artem Markelov was 17th fastest for MP Motorsport. The Russian is replacing Jordan King at the team, as the Briton is contesting the clashing Indianapolis 500.

Qualifying at Monaco will be – as usual – split into two groups, with the odd-numbered cars going out in a separate session to the even-numbered cars, due to the tight nature of the track.