Jüri Vips did very well on his final lap in the Formula 2 standings in Baku. Felipe Drugovich is fifth, while Jake Hughes leads the sprint race
The 2022 Formula 2 season has arrived in Azerbaijan for another double round. Before the races, however, the category formed the starting grids with qualifying held this Friday morning (10), on the streets of Baku. Beside the Caspian Sea, Jüri Vips took the best and secured the pole-position.
Jüri Vips managed to take pole position in a troubled qualifying session. Ayumu Iwasa, who was leading from the first minutes, made a mistake and hit the wall with just under six minutes to go in qualifying. The accident caused a red flag, and cancelled out all the tire warm-ups done by the other drivers. All that was left was the chance for a fast lap.
GRAND PRIME is following all the activities of the Formula 1 Azerbaijan GP LIVE and IN REAL TIME. Later today, TL2 is scheduled for 11:00 am [GMT-3]. In F2, the races are scheduled for 6:30am on Saturday and 4:05am on Sunday.
Check out how qualifying went:
On a very windy day in Baku - with gusts above 60 km/h - Formula 2 arrived to set the starting grid for the weekend's two races.
Normally, F2 qualifying takes place after Formula 1's TL2 on Fridays, but this is reversed in Azerbaijan's case because of the time zone. The weekend keeps the international schedule of the other European races, but the local time zone is two hours later than in Continental Europe - three hours later than in England. Thus, leaving qualifying until after TL2 would culminate with cars on track at twilight time.
As soon as the green light appeared, cars were on the track in full force for the 30-minute session. The first few laps served to warm up the tires, and after that it was Ayumu Iwasa who took the lead: 1min54s483.
Dennis Hauger appeared second initially, but the laps fell fast. Felipe Drugovich was always among the first. He was third when Hauger was second, and remained third when Hauger appeared tenth three minutes later.
Marcus Armstrong managed to lap only 0s004 slower than Iwasa and jumped up to second, but did not change the lead of the session. Meanwhile, Ralph Boschung would go straight through at turn three and get stuck in the escape area. Meanwhile, Jehan Daruvala was clipping the wall and risking more serious damage to his car.
After half of the 30 minutes, Iwasa, Armstrong, Drugovich, Liam Lawson, Daruvala, Jüri Vips, Frederik Vesti, Roy Nissany, Jack Doohan, and Hauger formed the top-10. Enzo Fittipaldi was 12th.
The track situation during the halfway mark of practice was that familiar one: most drivers in the pits preparing for the final minutes. With just over ten minutes to go, the track was filling up again.
But the cars were doing the necessary minutes of warm-up when, with just under six minutes to go, the leader Iwasa entered the corner too early and ended up on the wall. Red flag and all lap preparation was by the wayside. Everything would start from scratch, but probably with only one fast lap available for everyone. Iwasa was out.
On the resumption of fast laps with the green flag, Hauger jumped into first position, but had to deal with the warning that he was under investigation for unsafe pit release. Anyway, Vips reacted and took the lead with an impressive lap of 1min53s762. No one could beat the Estonian from the Red Bull Academy.
Vips had Lawson, another Red Bull driver in second. Hauger, Armstrong, Drugovich, Richard Verschoor, Logan Sargeant, Daruvala, Vesti, and Jake Hughes rounded out the top-10. With the grid reversed, Hughes is the front-runner for Saturday's sprint race.