Lawson Tops Day 2 of Formula 2 Testing in Bahrain

Liam Lawson proved to be the fastest driver on track on day 2 of FIA Formula 2 pre-season testing after becoming the first driver to set a time below the 1:42.000 threshold for his new team, Carlin. Lawson’s best effort came in the afternoon session where teams opted to run some qualifying simulations thanks to the warmer conditions out on track.

The quickest time in the morning came from the Estonian driver Jüri Vips with a 1:46.705 as opposed to the Kiwi’s 1:41.623 in the afternoon. Ralph Boschung and Theo Pourchaire finished the day on identical lap times of 1:42.096, with them setting twenty and twenty-five laps, respectively.

Logan Sargeant was half a second off his Carlin team-mate after twenty-six laps, showing good signs of control of the F2 chassis following his graduation from FIA Formula 3. Fellow F3 graduate and last years runner-up Jack Doohan set the fifth fastest time, three hundredths faster than his Virtuosi Racing team-mate Marino Sato who set a 1:42.174.

Frederik Vesti set an identical time to Sato down to the thousandth in seventh place with Felipe Drugovich, Jehan Daruvala and Richard Verschoor rounding out the top ten. The whole grid were separated by two seconds in the afternoon session, with the only outlier being Marcus Armstrong who set just two laps before clipping the barriers at turn eight and turning in a 1:57.854.

Cem Bölükbasi spent the most time out on track with thirty-four laps of the Bahrain International Circuit, setting the fifteenth fastest time of the grid. He enjoyed his run-out after yesterday’s afternoon session was cut short due to technical issues.

The Turkish debutant stated the following in a press release, “Very positive day overall, we did both race runs and quali simulations and we gathered a lot of informations. I’ve learned a lot of things that can help us improve especially in the long runs, the car already feels amazing and we just keep making steps forward, we’ll keep doing so tomorrow.“

POS	NO	DRIVER	NAT	TEAM	TIME	GAP	LAPS
1	5	Liam Lawson	NZL	Carlin	1:41.623		63
2	15	Ralph Boschung	CHE	Campos Racing	1:42.096	+0.473	52
3	10	Théo Pourchaire	FRA	ART Grand Prix	1:42.096	+0.473	64
4	6	Logan Sargeant	USA	Carlin	1:42.133	+0.510	71
5	3	Jack Doohan	AUS	Virtuosi Racing	1:42.144	+0.521	53
6	4	Marino Sato	JPN	Virtuosi Racing	1:42.174	+0.551	56
7	3	Frederik Vesti	DNK	ART Grand Prix	1:42.174	+0.551	66
8	11	Felipe Drugovich	BRA	MP Motorsport	1:42.273	+0.650	64
9	2	Jehan Daruvala	IND	PREMA Racing	1:42.286	+0.663	57
10	20	Richard Verschoor	NLD	Trident	1:42.297	+0.674	52
11	24	Jake Hughes	GBR	Van Amersfoort Racing	1:42.483	+0.860	61
12	25	Amaury Cordeel	BEL	Van Amersfoort Racing	1:42.562	+0.939	40
13	8	Jüri Vips	EST	Hitech Grand Prix	1:42.565	+0.942	49
14	1	Dennis Hauger	NOR	PREMA Racing	1:42.612	+0.989	57
15	23	Cem Bölükbasi	TUR	Charouz Racing System	1:42.729	+1.106	67
16	22	Enzo Fittipaldi	BRA	Charouz Racing System	1:42.739	+1.116	64
17	12	Clément Novalak	FRA	MP Motorsport	1:42.991	+1.368	58
18	21	Calan Williams	AUS	Trident	1:43.000	+1.377	71
19	16	Roy Nissany	ISR	DAMS	1:43.083	+1.460	63
20	17	Ayumu Iwasa	JPN	DAMS	1:43.284	+1.661	44
21	14	Olli Caldwell	GBR	Campos Racing	1:43.654	+2.031	56
22	7	Marcus Armstrong	NZL	Hitech Grand Prix	1:49.832	+8.209	42

F2 testing returns on Friday for the final test before the start of the new season in two weeks time. Everyone is getting to grips with the car, including the ten rookies that are stepping up from F3 for their first full-time season in F2.