Red Bull junior Ayumu Iwasa takes his first pole position in Formula 2 at the Hungaroring, joined by Marcus Armstrong in P2 and Felipe Drugovich in P3.
Iwasa delivered a stunning qualifying lap of 1:27.930s in the final moments of qualifying that left him 0.381s clear of the rest of the field. Just a week after taking his first race win in F2, the DAMS driver looks set to climb even higher in the Drivers’ Championship this weekend – he currently occupies P9. None were more surprised about the dominance of the young driver than himself when speaking to the media in the post-qualifying press conference.
“Yeah, I’m surprised about the gap behind me but to be honest, I was quite nervous until last push because I was quite far from the pole position and I couldn’t put together one lap. So I was quite nervous about it. Finally, I could put it together in the last push.”
Pole position at the Hungaroring looked set to be in the hands of Marcus Armstrong until the very end. Setting the first benchmark lap of the session, and regaining the top spot at every given opportunity, Armstrong was the man to beat for much of qualifying. The Kiwi – who celebrated his 22nd birthday on Saturday – looked untouchable with Theo Pourchaire and Logan Sargeant both proving unable to set a time to challenge him. However in failing to improve on his final push lap, Armstrong opened the door for rookie driver Ayumu Iwasa to gladly take pole position for himself.
“When they told me that I was P2 and then they told me that I was P2 by three-tenths, I was quite surprised because I knew that it was quite tight behind and I knew that I could have found one or two tenths in my driving.”
Marcus Armstrong in the post-qualifying press conference
Rounding out the top 3 saw a battle between the two championship leaders, Felipe Drugovich and Theo Pourchaire. The two proved to be incredibly evenly matched with Drugovich taking P3 but finishing just 0.019s ahead of Pourchaire. Following the session, the Brazilian’s mind was immediately focused on the coming races and ultimately securing points for the championship – he currently leads the Frenchman in the Drivers’ Championship by 39 points.
“I’m very, very confident. I think our race pace has been good throughout the whole year. Maybe even more than quali…But yeah, I’m just focusing on my job. Hopefully, we can do a good job this weekend. And yeah, always focusing on the points.”
Felipe Drugovich in the post-qualifying press conference
Whilst the field took to the pits mid session before heading out for their second round of push laps, Olli Caldwell saw an opportunity to take advantage of the clear track. The Campos Racing driver surprised all when he momentarily took pole position and jumped from P16 to P1. Initially it looked to be a very smart strategy call, though the celebrations were very short lived as when the rest of the field put in their final push laps, the Brit dropped to P13.