de Vries tightens grip on F2 title with Russia pole

Full F2 qualifying results in Russia

Nyck de Vries has extended his Formula 2 championship advantage to 63 points over Nicholas Latifi thanks to securing pole position for the Feature Race in Russia.

With de Vries mathematically able to wrap up the F2 title this weekend, the Dutch driver has made his task slightly easier by taking pole position at Sochi Autdromo – recording his fifth pole position of the year.

The ART Grand Prix driver heads up main title rival Latifi who joins him on the front row of the grid in Russia, missing out on pole by 0.260s for DAMS.

Callum Ilott has qualified at the front of the second row for the junior Sauber squad ahead of Luca Ghiotto who is currently in third place in the F2 standings.

Chinese star Guanyu Zhou heads up row three for UNI-Virtuosi Racing, directly behind team-mate Ghiotto, but ahead of Sergio Sette Camara whose late improvement grabbed him sixth place on the grid for the Feature Race.

Louis Deletraz leads the Carlin charge in seventh place in qualifying in front of local star Nikita Mazepin in the second ART Grand Prix car as Jordan King (MP Motorsport) and Nobuharu Matsushita (Carlin) rounded out the top 10.

Mick Schumacher endured a tricky qualifying debut at Sochi Autodrom down in 11^th place for Prema Racing.

Artem Markelov, who steps in at BWT Arden following the tragic loss of Anthoine Hubert, qualified in 16^th place on his return to F2 directly ahead of fellow Russian replacement Matevos Isaakyan in 17^th place as he stands in for the injured Juan Manuel Correa at the Sauber squad.