Charles Leclerc underlines his excellent form with his third consecutive FIA Formula 2 pole position at his home race in Monaco. The Prema Racing driver set a lap time of 1m19.309s in Group A, comprised of all odd-numbered drivers. The best man in Group B with all even-numbered drivers was Alexander Albon, losing out to Leclerc by only three hundredths of a second.
Johnny Cecotto Jr. and Charles Leclerc were the early pace setters for Group A. However, as the lap times improved, they were pushed down the order by Sergio Canamasas, who settled down on provisional pole position with a time of 1m21.411s and 10of the 16 minutes of the first qualifying session left. Canamasas made a late pitstop that Cecotto, who had stopped earlier, dashed ahead of the Spaniard in the meantime and put himself on top with an advantage of over one second.
Times began to tumble down even further in the last five minutes. Nobuharu Matsushita put himself ahead of Cecotto with a time of 1m20.069s. Then it was Leclerc’s moment on top as the Monegasque was the first man to dip under 1m20s. However, his time on provisional pole position did not last long as mere moments afterwards it was Oliver Rowland who jumped ahead of the rookie.
Leclerc retaliated with his final effort, and secured pole position with two minutes left on the clock. Rowland remained in second place in Group A, while Matsushita jumped up to third place before hitting the wall and breaking his front wing and suspension in the dying minutes of the session. Jordan King was able to improve to fourth place in his last lap and Luca Ghiotto finished the session in fifth place ahead of Sean Gelael, Cecotto, Canamasas, Louis Deletraz, and Ralph Boschung.
However, Leclerc is under investigation by the stewards for stalling in the pit lane and not waiting for one minute afterwards to leave the pit lane. An incident between Rowland and Canamanas is also under investigation, with both results not being published yet at the time of writing.
Qualifying Group B began with a little hiccup for Nyck de Vries as the Dutch driver stalled his car when trying to leave the pit lane. However, the rookie was able to recover and was soon underway with the rest of the field. Only Artem Markelov remained in the pits a little bit longer to run his installation lap on a clear track.
The first man to set a benchmark lap time was Sergio Sette Camara with a time of 1m21.865s. The Brasilian remained on top until the halfway mark of the session when his time was beaten by Markelov by seven tenths of a second.
Newcomer Robert Visoiu jumped up to second place shortly afterwards, before Alexander Albon claimed the top spot with a time of 1m19.792s. In the dying minutes of the session, lap times began to drop rapidly. Nicholas Latifi jumped up to second place, four tenths off Albon’s time, and Norman Nato came even closer to the ART GP man, being only one hundredth of a second off his rival’s time. De Vries jumped up to third and Markelov settled into fourth place, but no one was able to beat Albon’s time.
Only the man himself was able to better his own time in his last effort, however, in was not enough to claim pole position. Markelov used the final minutes to jump up to second place, so that at the checkered flag it was Albon ahead of the now second-placed Russian, Nato, de Vries (who will serve a three place grid drop penalty), Latifi, Gustav Malja, Antonio Fuoco, Visoiu, Nabil Jeffri and Sette Camara.
With the winner of the qualifying coming from Group A, this means that all Group A drivers will line up behind polesitter Leclerc, and all Group B drivers will line up on the other side of the grid behind Albon.
