Maini heads Invicta one-two, Prema’s Antonelli & Bearman struggle · RaceFans

Kush Maini secured the first pole position of the newest era of Formula 2 in Bahrain ahead of his Invicta team mate Gabriel Bortoleto.

The Alpine academy driver secured his first F2 feature race pole of his career, becoming the first pole winner with the series’ new F2 2024 chassis.

Maini set his pole-winning time of a 1’41.696 with several minutes to spare with team mate Bortoleto coming closest, over two tenths slower, making the reigning Formula 3 champion the highest-placed debutante in the field. Red Bull junior Isack Hadjar took third on the grid for Saturday’s sprint race, ahead of two of his former stablemates: Zane Maloney in fourth and Dennis Hauger fifth.

Ritomo Miyata will start from sixth position in his first F2 feature race, one place ahead of Williams junior Zak O’Sullivan in seventh. Enzo Fittipaldi secured eighth on the feature race grid ahead of ART’s Victor Martins.

Taylor Barnard will start his first F2 race from pole position. He secured reverse-grid pole position for tomorrow’s sprint race having jumped up to tenth at the chequered flag.

However, it was a deeply disappointing start to the championship for the Prema team and their highly-touted driver line-up of Ferrari junior Oliver Bearman and 17-year-old Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli. While Antonelli out-qualified his more experienced team mate at the first attempt, the two Premas qualified down in 18th and 19th on the grid for both races.

It was a session without incident, although Jak Crawford came to a halt on the run down to turn ten after the chequered flag. With Barnard starting Saturday’s sprint race from pole, he will be joined by Martins on the front row of the grid.

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Formula 2 Bahrain qualifying results

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