Van Hoepen steals pole position in Formula 2 qualifying in Montrêal

Credit: Formula 2

Trident Racing's Laurens Van Hoepen took pole position in Formula 2's maiden visit to Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montréal, Canada. He'll start Sunday's Feature Race from the top spot ahead of Rafael Câmara and Alex Dunne.

How it happened

The start of qualifying was delayed due to issues in Formula 1 practice, which ran long after several incidents. After a half hour delay, the cars were finally out on track with 30 minutes to set the fastest lap time that they can in hopes to grab pole position, or at least a spot in the top 10.

Ritomo Miyata led the field as the first driver to set an official fast lap, but was quickly overtaken as the rest of the field crossed the line. MP Motorsport's Gabriele Minì was the early pacesetter of the group when the first flurry of laps were done, going fastest with a time of 1:22.615.

Rafael Câmara was able to take second place just 0.005s slower than Minì, but as drivers started their second runs, times continued to improve. Van Amersfoort's Nico Varrone was the driver at the top before Câmara's second run put him fastest so far. 10 minutes into the session he was leading Nico Varrone and the Campos Racing pair of Noel León and Nikola Tsolov.

Halfway through the session, everyone except for the Campos drivers were off track and in the pits. But unable to make any major improvements, the Campos drivers returned to pit lane as well and the whole field re-grouped before their final efforts.

With ten minutes to go, the entire field was back out on track again. As they were gearing up, Oliver Goethe brought out the yellow flag after going over the kerb at Turn 3 and hitting the back of his MP Motorsport car into the barrier.

The session was red flagged with a little over 8 minutes to go, giving the marshalls a chance to recover Goethe's car while allowing drivers time to set their final laps after. As qualifying resumed, the race was on to get out and set a good lap time with limited time left for warmup and no room for error.

But before anyone could set a lap time and improve, the yellow flags were out again, this time for Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, who hit the barrier in the same spot that Goethe did just a few minutes earlier. The session was halted again, this time with just over five minutes on the clock.

During the following red flag period, Câmara's crew began taking his car apart, hoping to make a fix to some damage sustained to the rear of his car in time for him to go out again and set a final lap once the red flag period was over. At that point in the session, Câmara was sitting on provisional pole ahead of Varrone, Laurens Van Hoepen, Dino Beganovic and Inthraphuvasak.

Finally, the red flag was over and drivers headed out with just five minutes left to set a lap. The Campos Racing pair were the first to cross the line, León grabbing provisional pole for a few seconds before his teammate Tsolov took the number one spot. Then it was Martinius Stenshorne who went fastest overall, as Minì improved but only to sixth.

Stenshorne's Rodin teammate Alex Dunne stole the top spot shortly after, the pair assuming the 1-2 spots they occupied at the end of practice earlier in the day.

With the time on the clock ran out, only drivers already on a lap could now improve and steal pole position from Dunne. Tsolov improved but only to second, but Van Hoepen set a strong lap time of 1:21.422 to take pole position for the Feature Race in Montréal.

Câmara held on to second place, and will start ahead of Dunne and Tsolov, with Stenshorne completing the top five. Joshua Durksen set a solid lap to qualify sixth ahead of John Bennett, Leon and Rafael Villagomez. Minì secured tenth place and will start on reverse grid pole position for Saturday's Sprint Race.

Full results can be found here.