F2 Spa: De Vries beats Russell to secure first series pole

Prema Racing driver De Vries topped Friday's earlier practice session, but his qualifying appeared to be falling apart when his first flier - good enough to top the session at that point - was disallowed for a track limits infringement at Radillon.

But he then went out with 15 minutes to go and ran on his own while the other drivers remained in the pits, setting a new fastest lap of the session with 10 minutes remaining.

That meant the rest of the field had a free shot at the Dutchman's target as he sat on the sidelines, having used the best of his tyres, but de Vries' time of 1m56.054s proved good enough to secure his first series pole by a comfortable margin.

Russell was initially fastest with his best lap from his first run and then held on to second in the late running, despite failing to improve to beat de Vries.

With just 12 points separating him and Norris, ART Grand Prix driver Russell came out on top in qualifying.

To add insult to injury, Norris's Carlin team-mate Sergio Sette Camara and Campos Racing's Luca Ghiotto jumped him with their final flying laps to go third and fourth respectively, relegating the Brit to fifth.

Norris - whose morning was busy thanks to sharing F2 duties with an Formula 1 practice debut for McLaren in FP1 - ground to a halt after his flying lap, meaning he could not return to the pits.

Antonio Fuoco, who will start seventh, also stopped after his final lap.

DAMS driver Alexander Albon's bid to usurp Russell and Norris in the points table took a hit in sixth, while Arden's Nirei Fukuzumi (eighth) headed Fuoco's Charouz Racing System team-mate Louis Deletraz and last year's Spa feature race winner, Artem Markelov.

Russian driver Markelov had been as high as fourth after the first runs, but dropped back late on.

Another driver to rue track limits penalties was Russell's team-mate Jack Aitken, who set a fastest first sector of all and should have moved up from 16th spot but was also pinged for an infringement.

GP3 graduate Dorian Boccolacci, who has replaced Roberto Merhi at MP Motorsport, rounded out the order in 20th.

Qualifying times

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Nyck de Vries	Pertamina Prema Theodore Racing	1m56.054s	-
2	George Russell	ART Grand Prix	1m56.457s	0.403s
3	Sergio Sette Camara	Carlin	1m56.594s	0.540s
4	Luca Ghiotto	Campos Vexatec Racing	1m56.611s	0.557s
5	Lando Norris	Carlin	1m56.723s	0.669s
6	Alexander Albon	DAMS	1m56.878s	0.824s
7	Antonio Fuoco	Charouz Racing System	1m56.930s	0.876s
8	Nirei Fukuzumi	BWT Arden	1m57.169s	1.115s
9	Louis Deletraz	Charouz Racing System	1m57.183s	1.129s
10	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	1m57.266s	1.212s
11	Tadasuke Makino	RUSSIAN TIME	1m57.394s	1.340s
12	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	1m57.515s	1.461s
13	Ralph Boschung	MP Motorsport	1m57.596s	1.542s
14	Maximilian Guenther	BWT Arden	1m57.635s	1.581s
15	Arjun Maini	Trident	1m57.718s	1.664s
16	Jack Aitken	ART Grand Prix	1m57.754s	1.700s
17	Roy Nissany	Campos Vexatec Racing	1m57.773s	1.719s
18	Sean Gelael	Pertamina Prema Theodore Racing	1m57.878s	1.824s
19	Alessio Lorandi	Trident	1m58.174s	2.120s
20	Dorian Boccolacci	MP Motorsport	1m58.338s	2.284s