Sergey Sirotkin put his foot down in today’s GP2 qualifying session at the Hockenheimring and claimed his second pole position of the season. The ART GP driver put his car ahead of Pierre Gasly’s Prema Racing machine and Raffaele Marciello’s Russian Time car in the dying minutes of the session.
The session took place in cloudy but nevertheless warm conditions. Oliver Rowland was the first man out on track and the first one to set a benchmark laptime of 1:23.889. However, the MP Motorsport man did not last long at the top of the timing sheet. Antonio Giovinazzi was the first man to dip under the 1 minute and 23 seconds barrier, and just afterwards his Prema Racing team mate Gasly beat the Italian by four thousands of a second. Sirotkin was among the last to finish their first flying lap, and it put him on the top of the timing sheet.
Giovinazzi reclaimed the provisional pole position with his second fast lap, and the DAMS duo of Alex Lynn and Nicolas Latifi jumped up to second and third, respectively. It was then Marciello’s turn on top of the time sheets with a lap of 1:22.369.
With a third of the session over, drivers began to return to the garages for new rubber. The stewards also announced their presence, issuing track limit warnings and eventually cancelling laptimes of several drivers.
Around the halfway mark of the session, the top drivers returned to the track on fresh rubber for another round of flying laps. Giovinazzi however pushed too hard, running off the track in the second sector, and also Marciello was unable to improve. Gasly on the other hand pushed and put himself on the top spot ahead of Marciello. Both Marciello and Giovinazzi decided to pit again, while Gasly stayed out and improved his own laptime by two tenths of a second to a 1:22.209.
However, Gasly then made the decision to return to the pit and call it a day, and was subsequently forced to watch from the pit wall as Sergey Sirotkin flew around the track to put his car on pole position. With the top drivers already in the pits in the dying minutes of the session, Sirotkin remained on top and ahead of Gasly and Marciello until the checkered flag fell. Giovinazzi finished the session in fourth place, and Rowland had dashed up to fifth place in the final stage of the session. Alex Lynn will start tomorrow’s feature race alongside his compatriot from sixth place on the grid. Norman Nato (Racing Engineering) will start from seventh place alongside the second DAMS car of Latifi, and Nato’s team mate Jordan King will line up in ninth place on the grid ahead of local hero Marvin Kirchhöfer (Carlin).
