Home Formula 2 Tsunoda tops F2 practice at Red Bull Ring, Schumacher crashes

Tsunoda tops F2 practice at Red Bull Ring, Schumacher crashes

by Josh Suttill

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency/Red Bull Content Pool

Red Bull junior Yuki Tsunoda topped Formula 2 practice at the Red Bull Ring for the second successive weekend, while Prema’s Mick Schumacher crashed out.

Tsunoda set a 1m15.692s halfway through the session, and that benchmark remained at the top of the timesheet for the remainder of the session. He also topped free practice for last week’s season opener at the circuit.

Hitech GP’s Nikita Mazepin set the second fastest time of the session, 0.146 seconds adrift of Tsunoda’s best effort.

Jehan Daruvala, both team-mate to Tsunoda at Carlin and a fellow Red Bull junior, had a strong showing by completing the top three, narrowly ahead of Hitech’s Luca Ghiotto.

Giuliano Alesi completed the top five for HWA Racelab ahead of ART Grand Prix’s Renault junior Christian Lundgaard, Prema driver and reigning FIA Formula 3 champion Robert Shwartzman and DAMS’ Dan Ticktum.

Lundgaard’s team-mate Marcus Armstrong spun his car at the penultimate corner on his first flying lap in practice, but was able to rejoin the session later on unlike fellow Ferrari junior Schumacher.

The Prema driver went off the track at Turn 7 – the same place that he went out of second place in the feature race last Saturday –  ending his session after just 10 minutes.

Armstrong recovered to set the ninth fastest time, with Campos Racing’s Jack Aitken rounding out the top 10.

Last week’s poleman Guanyu Zhou ended the session in 11th place for Virtuosi Racing, ahead of the 2019 feature race winner Nobuharu Matsushita (MP Motorsport) and points-leading Virtuosi team-mate Callum Ilott.

Sunday’s sprint race winner Felipe Drugovich was 20th in the classification, 1.615s slower than Tsunoda.

 

Free practice results
Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Yuki Tsunoda Carlin 1m15.692s 23
2 Nikita Mazepin Hitech GP 1m15.838s +0.146s 21
3 Jehan Daruvala Carlin 1m16.017s +0.325s 24
4 Luca Ghiotto Hitech GP 1m16.045s +0.353s 20
5 Giuliano Alesi HWA Racelab 1m16.066s +0.374s 22
6 Christian Lundgaard ART Grand Prix 1m16.100s +0.408s 23
7 Robert Shwartzman Prema 1m16.160s +0.468s 22
8 Dan Ticktum DAMS 1m16.217s +0.525s 22
9 Marcus Armstrong ART Grand Prix 1m16.218s +0.526s 14
10 Jack Aitken Campos Racing 1m16.262s +0.570s 21
11 Guanyu Zhou Virtuosi Racing 1m16.293s +0.601s 22
12 Nobuharu Matsushita MP Motorsport 1m16.319s +0.627s 25
13 Callum Ilott Virtuosi Racing 1m16.322s +0.630s 23
14 Artem Markelov HWA Racelab 1m16.470s +0.778s 24
15 Pedro Piquet Charouz Racing System 1m16.576s +0.884s 25
16 Sean Gelael DAMS 1m16.592s +0.900s 24
17 Marino Sato Trident 1m16.737s +1.045s 23
18 Roy Nissany Trident 1m16.741s +1.049s 22
19 Louis Deletraz Charouz Racing System 1m16.899s +1.207s 25
20 Felipe Drugovich MP Motorsport 1m17.307s +1.615s 24
21 Guilherme Samaia Campos Racing 1m17.511s +1.819s 25
22 Mick Schumacher Prema 1m28.122s +12.430s 4