Exactly as it was a week ago, Red Bull Junior Yuki Tsunoda topped the FIA Formula 2 practice session with Carlin and Hitech GP showing impressive pace.
Japanese racer Tsunoda ended the only practice session the teams get 0.146s ahead of Nikita Mazepin who didn’t run a single lap in the equivalent session last week and showed vast improvements for F2’s newest team.
The sister Carlin and Hitech cars of Jehan Daruvala and Luca Ghiotto came third and fourth to validate their teammates pace.
It was a mixed session for PREMA as Robert Shwartzman set a good pace and a lot of laps, ending the session seventh but Mick Schumacher could only manage ten minutes of running before losing control of his car at turn seven and ending his session in the gravel.
Guiliano Alesi was arguably the star of the feature race in the opening round of the year and continued his good start to the season with fifth ahead of rookie Christian Lundgaard.
The top ten was rounded off by DAMS’ Dan Ticktum in eighth ahead of Marcus Armstrong who, like Schumacher, had a big spin but he was able to drive away from turn nine. And in tenth came Jack Aitken who did well to re-acclimatise with his Campos car having driven for Williams in F1 Free Practice 1.
UNI-Virtuosi duo Guanyu Zhou and Callum Ilott, who were both very quick last week at the same circuit, could only manage eleventh and thirteenth respectively with round one sprint race winner Felipe Drugovich twentieth.
| Pos. | Name | Team | Lap Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yuki Tsunoda | Carlin | 1:15:692 |
| 2 | Nikita Mazepin | Hitech GP | 1:15:838 |
| 3 | Jehan Daruvala | Carlin | 1:16:017 |
| 4 | Luca Ghiotto | Hitech GP | 1:16:045 |
| 5 | Guiliano Alesi | HWA Racelab | 1:16:066 |
| 6 | Christian Lundgaard | ART | 1:16:100 |
| 7 | Robert Shwartzman | PREMA | 1:16:160 |
| 8 | Dan Ticktum | DAMS | 1:16:217 |
| 9 | Marcus Armstrong | ART | 1:16:218 |
| 10 | Jack Aitken | Campos | 1:16:262 |
| 11 | Guanyu Zhou | UNI-Virtuosi | 1:16:293 |
| 12 | Nobuharu Matsushita | MP Motorsport | 1:16:319 |
| 13 | Callum Ilott | UNI-Virtuosi | 1:16:322 |
| 14 | Artem Markelov | HWA Racelab | 1:16:470 |
| 15 | Pedro Piquet | Charouz | 1:16:576 |
| 16 | Sean Gelael | DAMS | 1:16:592 |
| 17 | Marino Sato | Trident | 1:16:737 |
| 18 | Roy Nissany | Trident | 1:16:741 |
| 19 | Louis Delétraz | Charouz | 1:16:899 |
| 20 | Felipe Drugovich | MP Motorsport | 1:17:307 |
| 21 | Guilherme Samaia | Campos | 1:17:511 |
| 22 | Mick Schumacher | PREMA | 1:28:122 |
