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Laman Ismayilova

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The Formula 2 qualifying session in Baku began with a delay due to work on the track. As usual, all the cars exited the pits at the same time, leading to heavy congestion on the circuit, Azernews reports.

According to AZERTAC, Jack Crawford initially led the timing sheets, but Gabriele Mini and Roman Stanek quickly surpassed him. However, the session was almost immediately red-flagged due to a heavy crash by Amory Cordil in Turn 13.

Before the session was halted, Aleks Dann managed to complete a fast lap, setting a time of 1:55.846 and moving to the top of the standings. Of course, this was just the beginning. For example, last year, Richard Verschoor had won the qualifying in Baku with a time of 1:54.857.

After the session resumed, Crawford set a fast time, with the American driver from DAMS surpassing Verschoor's time from the previous year by 0.066 seconds, clocking 1:54.791. At that moment, neither Dann nor the leader of the junior series, Leonardo Fornaroli, were able to improve their times due to mistakes.

However, the Italian driver corrected his mistake in the next attempt and finished in second place, just 0.019 seconds behind Crawford.

All the drivers then returned to the pits for fresh tires and re-entered the track with less than 10 minutes remaining in the session. With limited time, the Invicta team advised Fornaroli to exit the pit lane with minimal loss of time and pass through the slower cars' out-laps.

But their hopes of improving the results were dashed. First, Viktor Martins caused a heavy crash, losing control of his car in Turn 3 and crashing into the barriers at high speed. The impact was so severe that the car’s right front suspension was completely destroyed, and the front of the Dallara caught fire. Marshals immediately intervened to extinguish the flames. Despite his experience, Martins has faced a string of failures this season—could there be another underlying issue?

With less than four minutes remaining, it was still possible to make another attempt, but the session was once again red-flagged after marshals had repaired the barriers, following an incident involving Stanek and British driver John Bennett of the Van Amersfoort Racing team.

Stanek failed to take the first corner correctly and drifted off the track. Without ensuring safety, he tried to rejoin the track, and at that moment, Bennett, passing at high speed, collided with him. Carbon debris was scattered all over the track, both cars crashed into the barriers, and the race officials had no choice but to stop the session as it was no longer feasible to resume.

As a result, Jack Crawford will start from pole position for the main race on Sunday. This is a repeat of his best qualifying result, which he first achieved in Jeddah back in April. Notably, the Saudi Arabian city circuit, with its long straights, somewhat resembles the Baku track.

On Sunday, Leonardo Fornaroli will start from the first row, while Gabriele Mini and Viktor Martins, one of the day’s biggest disappointments, will start from second place. Let’s hope Martins’ car didn’t suffer serious damage and that the ART mechanics can repair it in time for tomorrow’s sprint race.

In the short-distance sprint race on Saturday, Sebastian Montoya is theoretically supposed to start from pole position, assuming no changes to the qualifying results due to penalties. Currently, he is in 10th position on the timing sheets.

Additionally, one of the two rookies from the Trident team, Martinius Stenshorne, showed a strong performance, securing 8th place, while his Dutch teammate Lorens Van Hupen finished only 20th.