Roman Stanek takes first Pole position in a 1-2 for Invicta Racing

Roman Stanek goes fastest after a close battle with his teammate sees the Invicta Racing team take a 1-2 in Qualifying and lock out the front row for Sunday's race.  

This is the Czech driver's maiden Pole Position in the Formula 2 Championship, earning the Aramco Pole Position Award by setting a 1:28.779 to top the timesheets. 

Championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli came close to dethroning his teammate but couldn't quite find the extra time needed and settles for P2 with Jan Crawford completing the top three for DAMS Lucas Oil. 

As it happened

Timings in Free Practice this morning were pretty close and got even more competitive as the track evolved which meant we had a great qualifying in store. \

Green light was shown at the end of the pit lane and it was Arvid Lindblad's name to appear at the top of the times first in this qualifying session as he set a 1:30.319.

However, his stay at the top didn't last long as Oliver Goethe was looking just as strong as he did this morning in Free Practice managed to find time and go just over a second up on the Briton.

Stanek was going fast out on track and managed to find time to go 0.146s quicker than the German driver. 

Out on the second laps, the track was ever changing but it was Stanek who extended his lead out front by the end of the second runs and no one had managed to find an answer to his pace yet. He had now upped the gap between himself and Goethe to just under two tenths of a second - setting a 1:29.107.

Whilst the majority of the grid had returned to the pits to fit a new set of Soft tyres, it was the provisional pole sitter's teammate Fornaroli who decided to try and use the empty track to his advantage and set a time before the others rejoined the circuit.

The Italian's time was looking good and was enough to put him on provisional Pole but a lap time deletion followed shortly after as he had exceeded track limits. The Invicta driver opted to make another attempt at the lap but had to settle for fourth fastest. 

The rest of the drivers had made their way back out onto the circuit for their final efforts of the session and Stanek yet again lowered the time to beat to a 1:29.779 - the Czech driver putting on a great display in this session after a positive Free Practice this morning. Jak Crawford had slotted into P2 and the fastest in Practice, Luke Browning, went up to P3. 

As others were making there way back to the pit lane, Fornaroli emerged b ack out on track with four minutes of the session left to go to make his final attempt. He came extremely close to topping his teammate who watched on in the garage, but fell short by 0.146s. 

This sealed the maiden Pole for Roman Stanek, with championship leader Fornaroli locking out the front row for the Invicta team in P2 and Crawford coming home in P3. 

Following the American in P4 was Luke Browning and then came Joshua Duerksen and Oliver Goethe - the latter struggling to find the same pace in the close stages of Qualifying. 

P7 went to the ART of Victor Martins and Arvid Lindblad wound up in P8. Alex Dunne finished in P9 and Pepe Marti rounded out the Top 10. 

As always, tomorrow's Sprint Race will feature the reversed Top 10 for the starting grid which puts Marti on reverse grid Pole for tomorrow's Sprint Race. 

Be sure to tune in tomorrow for all the racing action which gets underway at 15:55 local time (16:55 UK time) - its sure to be a good one!

Katie Shepherd 
Writer - F1 Journal