Maiden F2 pole for Lundgaard in very tight qualifying

FIA Formula 2 was again incredibly close in qualifying as Christian Lundgaard beat Dan Ticktum by just 0.005s to his maiden pole in the series as he tries to haul himself back into the title conversation.

The Dane was already the man to beat heading into the final runs yet he managed to go even faster to secure pole position and the four points that brings him closer to the fight.

And he needed that improvement because just behind him on the road, Ticktum was on a charge but his lap was fractionally slower than Lundgaard’s and he had to settle for second.

Also within a tenth of the pole time was championship leader Callum Ilott who could go a long way to strengthening his grasp on the points lead starting Saturday’s feature race from third.

His fellow contenders suffered more troubled sessions; no more than Mick Schumacher who could only manage fifteenth after a big spin that he was lucky to come out the other side of with no damage.

Schumacher’s PREMA teammate Robert Shwartzman salvaged a poor first run with ninth on his final lap as Yuki Tsunoda also struggled down in eleventh.

It’s all good news then for Ilott but he’ll have carefree drivers around him, Marcus Armstrong had his best qualifying in fourth ahead of Felipe Drugovich who enjoyed the hard compound tyres in practice.

It has been rare to see Jehan Daruvala as the lead Carlin but the Indian produced a fine lap to qualify sixth ahead of practice pace-setter Juri Vips. The Estonian made an error on his final lap and failed to improve as much as he could have.

Luca Ghiotto was just behind Vips in practice and he was again in qualifying, but the Italian also had a trip through the gravel as the drivers pushed the limits of the Mugello circuit.

Campos worked hard to get Jack Aitken’s car fixed after the Brit crashed in practice but he repaid their efforts with tenth.