De Vries beats Norris to F2 pole in Russia

Prema’s Nyck de Vries claimed his second Formula 2 pole position of the 2018 season as he beat title contender Lando Norris to the fastest time in Russia.

Championship leader George Russell headed the timesheets for the majority of the 30 minute qualifying session but a flurry of late improvements – including chief title rival Norris - resulted the ART Grand Prix driver and Mercedes Formula 1 junior slipping to third.

Carlin’s Norris had sat behind Russell for much of qualifying but found late gains to get within 0.220s of de Vries’ 1m46.476s benchmark and crucially ahead of his fellow countryman, pipping Russell by a tenth.

Nicholas Latifi followed up his latest F1 FP1 outing with Force India with a strong run to secure fourth on the grid for Saturday’s feature race, outpacing DAMS teammate Alexander Albon.

Luca Ghiotto put his Campos machine sixth, ahead of Russian Time’s Tadasuke Makino and the second Carlin of Sergio Sette Camara.

Briton’s Jack Aitken recovered from his recent struggles to post a time good enough for ninth on the grid, while Maximilian Gunther rounded out the top 10 for Arden.

The session was briefly halted for a red flag period when Arjun Maini spun at the exit of Turn 14 and stalled his Trident during the early stages. He failed to set a representative time and will start 20th as a result.

Full F2 Russia qualifying results