After championship leader Stoffel Vandoorne remained in the top spot for the majority of today’s qualifying session, it was Sergey Sirotkin who took the pole position in Silverstone. The Russian jumped to the top of the time sheet in the dying minutes of the session and was even able to improve further in his last lap and finish ahead of Vandoorne. Richie Stanaway, who had had an uneventful session until the very end, was able to improve as well in the last minutes to claim third place on the starting grid for tomorrow’s Feature race.
With higher temperatures and stronger wind than in this morning’s free practice session, it was even more difficult for teams and drivers to find the right setup for the perfect lap on the softer Medium compound. While drivers did their warmup laps, tyre conservation was just as important as getting the Pirelli rubber and the brakes up to the right temperature.
Stoffel Vandoorne was the first one to put his foot down and set a benchmark lap time of 1.40386, already faster than last year’s pole position lap, even though he was still struggling with oversteering. Sergey Sirotkin was hot on the Belgian’s heels and jumped up to third place ahead of Alex Lynn, showing he carried over his good form from Austria.
Vandoorne improved further in his second flying lap to 1:40.134, which would see him remain on top until the dying minutes of the session, and Sirotkin followed the Belgian suit and stayed in second place only a tenth of a second behind. Newcomer Oliver Rowland set an exclamation mark as well, jumping up to third place in his first ever GP2 qualifying session, while Alexander Rossi was unlucky and had his second flying lap interrupted by a short yellow flag phase.
While everyone else was out on track in the first part of the session, only this morning’s fastest man Rio Haryanto as well as returnee Jon Lancaster remained in the pits with mechanics working hard on both their cars. Lancaster would eventually not be able to leave the pit lane, however, Haryanto was able to make his way out onto the track during the usual mid-session pit stop phase. The Indonesian had the track to himself, however, he was not able to carry his good form from the morning session over to the afternoon and would finish the session outside the top ten.
The last stage of the session, with everyone out on new rubber, was once again busy, and no improvements were made as drivers ran into traffic on their fastest laps. That is, until Sirotkin managed to get into clean air and claimed the top spot with two minutes left on the clock. Vandoorne tried to retaliate immediately but he was not able to improve, unlike the Russian: In his very last lap, Sirotkin pushed even further and was able to beat his own lap time by three hundredths of a second. Stanaway’s last attempt was also successful: the Kiwi climbed up to third place to finish the session ahead of Alexander Rossi, Arthur Pic, Pierre Gasly, Nobuharu Matsushita, Raffaele Marciello, Oliver Rowland, and Julian Leal.
All images courtesy of GP2 Media Services
