Doohan Secures First Pole of 2023 F2 Season at Hungaroring, Defeats Martins and Vesti in Intense Qualifying Battle

Virtuosi’s Jack Doohan scored his first pole position of the 2023 FIA Formula 2 season at the Hungaroring, with an intense fight against Victor Martins, who came in second, followed by championship leader Frederik Vesti. The Australian driver set a time of 1:27.676, which was under threat by his Alpine Academy teammate but was ultimately unbeatable.

Vesti was the first to set the benchmark of 1:28.334 putting him on top for his competitors to fight for the lead. Doohan put himself behind the Dane very early into the session as Ayumu Iwasa made complaints of light rain in sector two, which sent the drivers out to get their positions before the rain hit them.

Doohan’s second place was beaten by Formula 3 champion Martins as he came behind the Dane, followed by his ART teammate Theo Pourchaire, whose lap time was deleted as he ran wide on turn 12. This put Doohan in seventh place.

The first red flag of the session was brought out by the trident of Roman Stanek with about 20 minutes left in the session as he spun into the barriers at turn 11, which brought all the cars into the pits.

Vesti still led the grid with a lap time of 1:27.767, but Martins fought for pole position, which was soon replaced by Doohan putting in the fastest lap of 1:27.676. Martins tried to get to the top, but as the chequered flag fell, his efforts were unsuccessful to outqualify Doohan, as the Australian took pole for Sunday’s feature race

Last year’s feature race winner Theo Pourchaire secured fifth place, followed by Isack Hadjar, Iwasa, 2022 Formula 3 podium sitter Oliver Bearman, The MP pair of Jehan Daruvala and Dennis Hauger, and Kush Maini as Saturday’s reverse grid pole-sitter.

The sprint race is set to start at 14:15 local time.

Pos.	#	Driver	Team	Time	Laps	%	Gap	Int
1	14	Jack DOOHAN	Invicta Virtuosi Racing	1:27.676	12	100
2	6	Victor MARTINS	ART Grand Prix	1:27.728	13	100.059	0.052	0.052
3	7	Frederik VESTI	PREMA Racing	1:27.767	11	100.103	0.091	0.039
4	5	Theo POURCHAIRE	ART Grand Prix	1:27.930	12	100.289	0.254	0.163
5	10	Isack HADJAR	Hitech Pulse-Eight	1:27.987	13	100.354	0.311	0.057
6	11	Ayumu IWASA	DAMS	1:28.090	13	100.472	0.414	0.103
7	8	Oliver BEARMAN	PREMA Racing	1:28.101	10	100.484	0.425	0.011
8	2	Jehan DARUVALA	MP Motorsport	1:28.153	14	100.544	0.477	0.052
9	1	Dennis HAUGER	MP Motorsport	1:28.155	14	100.546	0.479	0.002
10	24	Kush MAINI	Campos Racing	1:28.164	11	100.556	0.488	0.009
11	4	Enzo FITTIPALDI	Rodin Carlin	1:28.267	13	100.674	0.591	0.103
12	22	Richard VERSCHOOR	Van Amersfoort Racing	1:28.286	13	100.695	0.610	0.019
13	25	Ralph BOSCHUNG	Campos Racing	1:28.316	11	100.729	0.640	0.03
14	3	Zane MALONEY	Rodin Carlin	1:28.321	13	100.735	0.645	0.005
15	21	Clement NOVALAK	Trident	1:28.542	13	100.987	0.866	0.221
16	23	Juan Manuel CORREA	Van Amersfoort Racing	1:28.764	14	101.240	1.088	0.222
17	12	Arthur LECLERC	DAMS	1:28.800	13	101.281	1.124	0.036
18	9	Jak CRAWFORD	Hitech Pulse-Eight	1:28.830	13	101.316	1.154	0.03
19	16	Roy NISSANY	PHM Racing by Charouz	1:29.000	14	101.510	1.324	0.17
20	15	Amaury CORDEEL	Invicta Virtuosi Racing	1:29.033	13	101.547	1.357	0.033
21	17	Brad BENAVIDES	PHM Racing by Charouz	1:29.328	14	101.884	1.652	0.295
22	20	Roman STANEK	Trident	1:29.910	4	102.548	2.234	0.582