Shortly after sunset, under the lights of the Shakir circuit, i 22 riders di Formula 2 took to the track for the first qualifying of the 2023 season. Absolute dominance that of the French driver Théo Pourchaire who gets the pole. Following the ART GP driver is his teammate Victor Martins and in third place Richard Verschoor.
ART GP flies with Porchaire and Martins
The rookie Kush hands is the first to register his time on the scoreboard, but moments later it is the other Campos Racing driver, Ralph Embankment, to move into provisional pole position. Overtaken in turn by Pourchaire, the Swiss rider lost the opportunity to start from the front row during Sunday's Feature Race due to an off-track during an excellent lap.
The improvement in track conditions and the change to soft tires weren't enough for any of the 21 riders on the grid to beat Pourchaire. The ART GP number #5 had shown speed in this morning's free practice session where he finished in first position and having obtained the same result in qualifying is proof of this. The lap clock read 1:41.530 when the qualifying session had just started 10 minutes ago. The only one to beat that time was its keeper, in fact the Sauber Academy driver with a triple fuscia in the 3 sectors he improves his time, thus obtaining the pole position. The new Formula 3 champion, Victor Martins, putting the car in second position, seals the front row of Sunday's grid for ART GP.
The last minutes of madness
The last 5 minutes of the qualifying session saw the improvement of many drivers and consequently the revolution of the provisional classification that had been seen up to then. In the limelight the pair of pilots of Dams, Ayumu Iwasa and Arthur Leclerc who came close to the podium but then slipped respectively to seventh and eighth position.
Short distances those between the P3 of verschoor e the P5 of the Danish Frederik Vesti, the scoreboard in fact marks 97 thousandths, a nothing that decides the starting positions of 3 riders. In fourth position we find Dennis Piles who manages to bring his MP Motorsport single-seater into the top 5, unlike teammate, Jehan She gave, which disperses behind the grid in eleventh place.
Grid order reversal could be instrumental in establishing F2's first Bahrain Grand Prix winner, we just have to wait for the start of the Sprint Race future!
