Antonio Giovinazzi secured his second pole position of his rookie GP2 Series campaign as he lead a Prema Racing 1-2 in qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps on Friday.
Giovinazzi’s snatched pole in the closing moments of the session to deny his Red Bull-backed team-mate Pierre Gasly another pole, with the Italian denying the Frenchman by just 0.161 seconds.
Perhaps the surprise of the session came in the form of Gustav Malja, who clinched third position on the grid for Rapax, albeit 0.517 seconds down on Giovinazzi. The Swede outpaced Racing Engineering pair Norman Nato and Jordan King, who were forced to settle for fourth and fifth, while the second Rapax of Arthur Pic ended up sixth.
Raffaele Marciello, a race winner at Spa in his rookie campaign back in 2014, ended up seventh quickest for Russian Time ahead of Alex Lynn of DAMS, while Nobuharu Matsushita of ART Grand Prix and Marvin Kirchhöfer of Carlin completed the top ten.
Whereas Gasly starts on the front row, Sergey Sirotkin, the driver who sits on top of the championship standings but on the same amount of points as the Frenchman, will start down in thirteenth in the second ART. The Russian driver made a mistake on both of his runs that left him well out of position and with a lot of work to do during Saturday’s Feature race.
Spa-Francorchamps Qualifying Result
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