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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