Leclerc storms to Jerez pole

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Charles Leclerc has resumed his normal service in this afternoon’s qualifying session by claiming his 8th pole position of the 2017 FIA Formula 2 Championship season at the Circuito de Jerez, easily grabbing the top spot with a time of 1:24.682 late in the session to deny the honours to Luca Ghiotto and Sergio Sette Camara.

Temperatures had soared from the morning’s free practice session when the green lights shone to allow the drivers to be released, with Sette Camara leading his rivals onto the track: Nyck De Vries set the first competitive time at the 5 minute mark before Leclerc grabbed P1 from him, with Ghiotto and newcomer Alex Palou swapping 2nd place between them over the next few laps before Oliver Rowland displaced the local driver in the top 3.

Leclerc improved on his best time at the halfway mark in the session before joining most of his rivals in the pits: Sette Camara was running an alternate strategy and had the entire circuit to himself with 10 minutes remaining, allowing the Brazilian to reclaim his P3 before returning to the pits as his rivals re-emerged to continue the battle.

With 3 minutes remaining Ghiotto improved his time as Rowland returned to the pits, but so too did Leclerc: the Ferrari Academy driver knew he had it in the bag and came back to the pits with Ghiotto trying in vain to improve once again before accepting his fate and joining a rapidly filling pitlane as the clock wound down to zero.

Rowland was hoping for more but will have to make do with P4, out of the top 3 but ahead of Artem Markelov, Alexander Albon, Nobuharu Matusushita, Nyck De Vries, Nicholas Latifi and Norman Nato, all of whom were within a second of the top spot and will be hoping for better luck in tomorrow’s feature race.

Preliminary Qualifying Classification

 Pos

Driver

 

Team

Time

Gap

 

Laps

1

Charles LECLERC

 

PREMA Racing

1:24.682

--

 

11

2

Luca GHIOTTO

 

RUSSIAN TIME

1:24.942

0.260

 

10

3

Sergio SETTE CAMARA

 

MP Motorsport

1:25.257

0.575

 

9

4

Oliver ROWLAND

 

DAMS

1:25.316

0.634

 

10

5

Artem MARKELOV

 

RUSSIAN TIME

1:25.422

0.740

 

11

6

Alexander ALBON

 

ART Grand Prix

1:25.426

0.744

 

9

7

Nobuharu MATSUSHITA

 

ART Grand Prix

1:25.450

0.768

 

11

8

Nyck DE VRIES

 

Racing Engineering

1:25.470

0.788

 

11

9

Nicholas LATIFI

 

DAMS

1:25.477

0.795

 

14

10

Norman NATO

 

Pertamina Arden

1:25.583

0.901

 

11

11

Alex PALOU

 

Campos Racing

1:25.600

0.918

 

11

12

Louis DELÉTRAZ

 

Rapax

1:25.627

0.945

 

11

13

Santino FERRUCCI

 

Trident

1:25.632

0.950

 

11

14

Jordan KING

 

MP Motorsport

1:25.653

0.971

 

10

15

Antonio FUOCO

 

PREMA Racing

1:25.738

1.057

 

11

16

Gustav MALJA

 

Racing Engineering

1:25.916

1.234

 

11

17

René BINDER

 

Rapax

1:26.121

1.439

 

10

18

Nabil JEFFRI

 

Trident

1:26.148

1.466

 

11

19

Sean GELAEL

 

Pertamina Arden

1:26.163

1.481

 

11

20

Ralph BOSCHUNG

 

Campos Racing

1:26.647

1.965

 

13

 

         

 

 

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