Kush Maini snatched a dominant pole position at the Formula 2 Hungarian GP Qualifying, with Sebastian Montoya taking reverse pole around the Hungaroring.
As the sole Practice session of the weekend concluded earlier in the day, Dino Beganovic secured the top spot with a 1:30.720. He was followed closely by Gabriele Mini and Nico Varrone to complete the top three. The racers hoped to match their Free Practice performance in the hectic Qualifying.
Joshua Duerksen led the pack for the first flying laps and set an early benchmark of 1:34.619. While he looked to be quick, going wide in the third sector added extra time to his lap. As he went off the track, his time was also deleted due to track limits. Regardless, he was quickly knocked down as the other drivers began their flying laps.
Nikola Tsolov set a new realistic benchmark of 1:29.601 in the first seven minutes of the session. As some of the F2 drivers were fast to get started on their second run of flying laps, the pack kept improving. However, Tsolov was still the man to beat.
Meanwhile, Beganovic took too much kerb on his flying lap, leaving him three tenths behind the current top spot. Noel Leon was next to set a purple first sector as he stormed to the top spot as the halfway point hit. Qualifying heated up as the benchmark once again moved, with Rafa Camara going 0.106 quicker than Leon. The Brazilian was on it as he beat his own time, going another two hundredths of a second quicker.
Slightly over half a second separated the top ten as the time ticked down on the clock, as drivers were still improving their lap times.
Tight battle for Pole
With 8 minutes left on the clock, Camara was still the driver on top. Meanwhile, drivers began heading back to the pits for preparation for their last runs.
Tsolov looked to improve as he went purple in the second sector after wobbling slightly in the first sector. One hundredth of a second quicker than Camara, Tsolov knocked him down from the top spot. The battle for pole got tight as Duerksen rocketed to take the top spot from Tsolov before he got knocked down by Kush Maini with a stunning lap time of 1:28.896.
At the back of the grid, Laurens Van Hoepen went wide and brushed the grass. He was joined at the back by Shields, Varrone, and Dunne. With three minutes left to go, the racers had enough time to improve their final positions.
Van Hoepen did indeed improve his position, even as his tyres appeared to struggle. With a hard push, he took himself from the back of the grid to the second row, for a brief moment. Further back, Mari Boya locked up in Turn 11 as his difficult session continued.
When the final countdown stopped and the cars went for their last attempts, the fight for pole was determined by narrow margins. Camara narrowly missed out on pole as he slotted in one tenth behind Pole Sitter Maini.
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