» Formula 2: Back-to-back poles for Albon

Alexander Albon has won back-to-back Formula 2 pole positions, matching his superb qualifying performance a fortnight ago in Azerbaijan to claim prime starting position for Saturday’s Feature Race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

The DAMS driver’s final flying lap proved untouchable for the rest of the field, with Nyck de Vries (PREMA Theodore Racing) and Luca Ghiotto (Campos Racing) coming closest in the final reckoning.

Conditions were warm and breezy in the late afternoon, with grip continuing to improve as the track began to cool. Albon’s DAMS teammate Nicholas Latifi was the first to beat the Anglo-Thai driver’s practice benchmark and the duo held sway at the top of the timesheets as the session’s halfway point approached.

Running was interrupted when Trident’s Santino Ferrucci hit the wall at Turn 9 and brought out the red flags. The American was proving to have a tough weekend so far, having already spun off in the earlier practice session.

A clever call by the DAMS team saw the outfit get its two drivers out on to an empty track when the session resumed. Latifi improved on his earlier time to get within one-tenth of his teammate’s opening effort, but Albon pulled out all stops and beat his earlier time by a further three-tenths of a second.

Track activity heated up, with a number of frontrunners trying and failing to beat Albon’s time.

Jack Aitken (ART) was the first to split the two DAMS drivers, but he was quickly beaten by teammate George Russell. De Vries then moved ahead of the pair to claim second-fastest, while a last-gasp effort from Ghiotto saw the Italian snatch third on the grid.

Behind the two ART entries, Tadasuke Makino secured seventh in his Russian Time entry ahead of championship leader Lando Norris (Carlin Motorsport). The MP Motorsport pairing of Ralph Boschung and local driver Roberto Merhi locked out the fifth row.

The opening Feature Race will be held over 37 laps, starts at 14:40 local time (GMT +2) on Saturday.

2017 FIA Formula 2 Championship Race of Spain – Qualifying Results
	Driver	Team / Entry	Time	Gap
1.	Alexander Albon	DAMS	1:28.142
2.	Nyck de Vries	Pertamina Prema Theodore Racing	1:28.369	+ 0.227
3.	Luca Ghiotto	Campos Vexatec Racing	1:28.400	+ 0.258
4.	George Russell	ART Grand Prix	1:28.524	+ 0.382
5.	Jack Aitken	ART Grand Prix	1:28.579	+ 0.437
6.	Nicholas Latifi	DAMS	1:28.605	+ 0.463
7.	Tadasuke Makino	Russian Time	1:28.620	+ 0.478
8.	Lando Norris	Carlin Motorsport	1:28.923	+ 0.781
9.	Ralph Boschung	MP Motorsport	1:28.970	+ 0.828
10.	Roberto Merhi	MP Motorsport	1:29.081	+ 0.939
11.	Antonio Fuoco	Charouz Racing System	1:29.130	+ 0.988
12.	Louis Delétraz	Charouz Racing System	1:29.136	+ 0.994
13.	Maximilian Günther	BWT Arden International	1:29.143	+ 1.001
14.	Sergio Sette Câmara	Carlin Motorsport	1:29.256	+ 1.114
15.	Roy Nissany	Campos Vexatec Racing	1:29.284	+ 1.142
16.	Sean Gelael	Pertamina Prema Theodore Racing	1:29.307	+ 1.165
17.	Nirei Fukuzumi	BWT Arden International	1:29.376	+ 1.234
18.	Arjun Maini	Trident Racing	1:29.407	+ 1.265
19.	Artem Markelov	Russian Time	1:29.585	+ 1.443
20.	Santino Ferrucci	Trident Racing	1:30.440	+ 2.298