GP2: Sirotkin flies to pole position in Austria
ART GP’s Sergey Sirotkin has claimed the pole position for the GP2 Feature race in Spielberg, Austria. The Russian was only six thousands of a second faster than his closest rival, Prema Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi. Pierre Gasly, who had held the top spot for the longest part of the session, was eventually demoted to third place.
After the heavy rain that had interrupted the Formula 1 free practice session earlier, the track had dried up again and the GP2 cars entered the track under a sunny sky. Norman Nato set the first benchmark laptime of 1:15.131 in his Racing Engineering car, but Sirotkin went half a second faster just afterwards before being beaten himself by Gasly, who settled down in the top spot with a lap of 1:13.975. Raffaele Marciello put his Russian Time car on third place in the early stage of the qualifying, but he was pushed down to fourth by his countryman Giovinazzi.
Halfway through the session all drivers did their usual pit stops to put on fresh rubber. Only Arden International’s Jimmy Eriksson remained outside, but the Swede was unable to improve his time on the empty track.
When the drivers left the pits, Gasly was still fastest ahead of Sirotkin, Giovinazzi, Marciello, and with four minutes left to run he was able to improve his own time by one tenth of a second. However, Sirotkin blasted past the Frenchman shortly afterwards and put himself on pole position with a lap of 1:13.663. Giovinazzi’s final effort was just barely slower than that of the Russian so that he had to settle for second place, six thousands off the pace.
Gasly made another effort, but despite an absolute best second sector his lap was not fast enough as he hit traffic in the final sector. Luca Ghiotto dashed up to fourth place, Giovinazzi drove one last flying lap as well in the dying minutes with a purple first sector; however, Eriksson stopped his car on track and the following yellow flags lasted until the chequered flag so that no one was able to improve their times afterwards.
Sirotkin, Giovinazzi, Gasly, and Ghiotto fill out the first two rows of tomorrow’s starting grid, ahead of championship leader Artem Markelov (Russian Time), Oliver Rowland (MP Motorsport), Alex Lynn (DAMS), Nato, and Mitch Evans (Campos). Eriksson will serve a three place grid penalty carried over from the previous race weekend and will start from the bottom of the grid.