Yuki Tsunoda rounds off fantastic qualifying with pole ahead of the F2 Belgian Grand Prix Feature Race

Yuki Tsunoda’s fantastic lap secured him pole for the F2 Belgian Grand Prix ahead of Hitech’s Nikita Mazepin and MP Motosport’s Nobuharu Matsushita.

Qualifying

Juri Vips stepped in for the injured Sean Geleal and into Geleal’s car alongside Dan Ticktum in the DAMS team. Geleal misses out on the next three Championship rounds due to a vertebrae injury.

Nobuharu Matsushita was out of the pit-lane first and was soon followed by his teammate Felipe Drugovich.

Giuliano Alesi pitted in due to his BWT HWA Racelab car appearing very unbalanced, with Alesi looking to get it right before time expired in the session.

Vips got the yellow flags out in sector two with the Red Bull-backed driver having issues with his DAMS car which halted his first-ever F2 qualifying session.

Marino Sato set the first competitive time of the qualifying session with the Japanese driver setting a time of 1:58.959 beating Roy Nissany’s early time by six-tenths.

Guilherme Samaia brought out the red-flag after his Campos Racing car was on fire. The Brazilian’s qualifying over.

Only six drivers were able to set a competitive time before the session was stopped with 21 minutes on the clock.

Marino Sato sat on pole with Pedro Piquet in second and Jahun Daruvala in third. Jack Aitken, Roy Nissany and Artem Markelov followed the top three with the six drivers split by 1.5 seconds.

Sato was the first driver out of the pit-lane after the restart and the drivers were given the green light with Roy Nissany following his teammate. BWT HWA Racelab drivers both stopped at the start of the pit-lane with the session red-flagged again.

The drivers were out again onto the Belgian circuit with most of the drivers not having set a competitive lap as of yet.

The two Championship contenders set timed-laps with Callum Ilott setting a 1:58.427 and Robert Shwartzman nearly three-tenths slower than Ilott.

Yuki Tsunoda was able to jump above Championship leader Callum Ilott by recording a lap four-tenths faster than the Uni-Virtuosi driver.

Mick Schumacher slotted in between Tsunoda and Ilott in second, two and a half tenths back from Tsunoda.

Everyone apart from Jack Aitken and Guiliano Alesi peeled into the pits with the Campos driver looking to have some sort of issue with his car. Alesi then decided to pit as the BWT HWA Racelab driver was still unhappy with the balance of the car.

Ten minutes were left in the session as Tsunoda topped the timing charts with Schumacher and Ilott in second and third. Nikita Mazepin in fourth with Louis Deletraz’s good lap putting him into fifth.

Guanyu Zhou was in sixth with Felipe Drugovich in seventh. Luca Ghiotto in eighth, Championship contender Robert Shwartzman in ninth and Jahun Daruvala rounded off the top ten.

Jack Aitken was able to improve from 18th to 14th with the Brit one second behind Tsunoda’s pole time with five minutes to go.

Tsunoda had another fantastic lap with the Carlin driver improving his time and rising back to pole. Nikita Mazepin was able to improve to second and MP Motorsport finished strong with Matsushita in third and Drugovich in fifth.

For the second time this season, Yuki Tsunoda qualified on pole for the F2 Belgian Grand Prix feature race with Nikita Mazepin in second and Nobuharu Matsushita in third.

Final Grid For The Race

Yuki Tsunoda qualified first with Nikita Mazepin inside the top three for the first-time this season as the Russian driver qualified in second. F2 Spanish Grand Prix feature race winner Nobuharu Matsushita rounded out the top three.

Championship contender Robert Shwartzman qualified fourth with Felipe Drugovich in fifth. Guanyu Zhou was the only Uni-Virtuosi inside the top ten in sixth with Mick Schumacher in seventh, Louis Deletraz in eighth, Jahun Daruvala in ninth with Luca Ghiotto rounding off the top ten.

Pedro Piquet was P11 with Callum Ilott’s worst qualifying of the season only securing the Championship leader P12. Marcus Armstrong qualified P13 with Dan Ticktum able to get his DAMS car into P14 after missing the practice session.

The Trident pair of Roy Nissany and Marino Sato qualified P15 and P16. Jack Aitken ended his worst qualifying in P17 and Christian Lundgaard qualified P18.

The BWT HWA Racelab pairing of Artem Markelov and Giuliano Alesi qualified P19 and P20. Guilherme Samaia and Juri Vips will start at the back of the grid with both drivers out early on.