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Tsunoda captures maiden F2 pole at second Red Bull Ring round

Red Bull and Honda junior Yuki Tsunoda took a stunning pole position on just his second Formula 2 outing in qualifying at the Red Bull Ring

The Carlin driver, who took a solitary win in his FIA Formula 3 Championship season last year, set a lap on his first of two sets of super-soft Pirelli tyres that could not be beaten.

Tsunoda, who also topped the lunchtime free-practice session, was 0.094 seconds ahead of championship leader Callum Ilott as the field returned to the pits following their first runs.

Ilott shaved 0.009s off his previous best once he got onto his second set of tyres, but that wasn't enough to prevent him being leapfrogged by Virtuosi Racing team-mate Guanyu Zhou.

The Chinese Renault F1 Junior fell just 0.038s short of the time of Tsunoda, who had his slower time on his second set deleted due to running too wide at Turn 9.

F2 veteran Luca Ghiotto sat behind Tsunoda and the Virtuosi pair in fourth place after the first runs, and the Hitech GP man was another who could not improve - even so, nobody was able to bump him down the order.

Jack Aitken came close to doing that with a last-lap effort - after starting the day driving for Williams in FP1 for the Styrian Grand Prix, Aitken finished up fifth with his Campos Racing F2 machine, a big improvement on his position last weekend.

Prema Racing tried a different strategy for its Ferrari proteges of going out late on their first set of tyres and running in the middle of the session.

That was Mick Schumacher's first time on track since he spun off at the Turn 7 left-hander in free practice and hit the tyre wall, and he was only able to make it into ninth place in qualifying.

Team-mate Robert Shwartzman fared better, and he will start Saturday's race from sixth on the grid.

Carlin's other Red Bull Junior, Jehan Daruvala, had looked quick all day but ended up getting overshadowed by Tsunoda on his way to seventh, and he will share the fourth row with ART Grand Prix-run Renault F1 prospect Christian Lundgaard.

Behind Schumacher, last weekend's reversed-grid race winner Felipe Drugovich completed the top 10 with his MP Motorsport car.

Two of the expected frontrunners finished up in the midfield, with ART's Ferrari protege Marcus Armstrong 12th and DAMS-run Williams junior Dan Ticktum 15th.

Charouz Racing System pair Pedro Piquet and Louis Deletraz were 17th and 18th respectively, and each will face a one-place grid penalty for driving round from the paddock to the pitlane on wet-weather tyres.

The field was separated by just a second between first and 19th, with only Campos' Guilherme Samaia outside of that bracket.

Red Bull Ring F2 qualifying results

Pos Driver Team Gap
1 Yuki Tsunoda Carlin 1m14.803s
2 Guanyu Zhou UNI-Virtuosi 0.038s
3 Callum Ilott UNI-Virtuosi 0.085s
4 Luca Ghiotto Hitech Grand Prix 0.171s
5 Jack Aitken Campos Racing 0.173s
6 Robert Shwartzman Prema Racing 0.175s
7 Jehan Daruvala Carlin 0.260s
8 Christian Lundgaard ART Grand Prix 0.296s
9 Mick Schumacher Prema Racing 0.338s
10 Felipe Drugovich MP Motorsport 0.386s
11 Marino Sato Trident 0.427s
12 Marcus Armstrong ART Grand Prix 0.462s
13 Roy Nissany Trident 0.471s
14 Nobuharu Matsushita MP Motorsport 0.501s
15 Dan Ticktum DAMS 0.502s
16 Sean Gelael DAMS 0.529s
17 Pedro Piquet Charouz Racing System 0.596s
18 Louis Deletraz Charouz Racing System 0.687s
19 Nikita Mazepin Hitech Grand Prix 0.725s
20 Artem Markelov BWT HWA RACELAB 0.878s
21 Giuliano Alesi BWT HWA RACELAB 0.918s
22 Guilherme Samaia Campos Racing 1.484s

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