Ferrari-backed Callum Ilott extended his Formula 2 title advantage to 23 points as he claimed his third pole position of the season at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain.
The championship leader had been right in the mix for pole all the way through the 30-minute session after setting the second-fastest time behind Robert Shwartzman during the first part of running, just 0.025s down on his fellow Ferrari junior.
However, an improvement on his second run whilst the majority of the other drivers were in the pits saw the Brit pull out a bigger margin of nearly half a second to his Russian rival.
Despite Shwartzman’s best efforts of narrowing it down to less than two-tenths, it was not enough to prevent Ilott achieving his third pole of the season.
Ilott’s UNI-Virtuosi team-mate Guanyu Zhou also impressed, as he avoided the traffic to place his car third on the grid, improving during the final stages of the session.
Felipe Drugovich continued his successful rookie year in F2 with fourth spot ahead of Mick Schumacher, Yuki Tsunoda, Jack Aitken, Dan Ticktum, Nikita Mazepin and Louis Deletraz.
Ilott’s nearest rival in the championship, Renault-backed Christian Lundgaard, finished only 14th.
The FIA Formula 2 Feature Race begins on Saturday afternoon at 15:45 BST.
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