FORMULA 2
 Victor Martins (pictured) was the quickest in Monaco F2 practice. Credit: Joe Portlock via Getty Images Alpine Academy ART driver Victor Martins topped the Formula 2 practice session on Thursday, in a rainy Monte Carlo. The drivers were put up to the test to try and push the car as best as they could, while trying to avoid damaging the cars and making mistakes - despite the treacherous conditions Monaco was putting on offer. Martins topped the session ahead of MP Motorsport's Dennis Hauger and Trident's Richard Verschoor who were second and third. Zane Maloney had a difficult session with the conditions and ended 17th. Maloney leads the championship coming into the event. How F2 practice unfolded in a soaked Monte Carlo Formula 2 times for UK Viewers - Round 5 Monaco Formula 2 would get underway at 15:00 local time in Monaco and the drivers would have 45 minutes to complete their running. It would be the start of a four day weekend, with practice taking place on Thursday instead of Friday. Qualifying would still take place on Friday but would be split into two groups of 11 to solve a traffic issue discovered in GP2 back in 2011. The Saturday and Sunday schedules would remain the same, with the sprint race on Saturday and the feature race on Sunday. However, their track running in practice, would be mostly wet due to the afternoon's earlier rain shower that soaked the circuit. Rain would continue to fall throughout the session. At the very start, on the out laps, Enzo Fittipaldi had no grip and ended up stopping as he brushed the wall at turn six. The Brazilian had to try and get himself reversed and back going, which he did. His teammate Rafael Villagomez reacted well to avoid hitting him. In the early stages, Victor Martins ran the quickest lap time 1:43.224. Victor Martins would be 0.653 ahead of Verschoor. The track would be ramping up though and times would change frequently. Zak O'Sullivan, Martins' teammate, went quickest. However, he would not be there for long as Martins went to the top once again with a 1:40.531 - 1.278s quicker than O'Sullivan. Taylor Barnard went third before he would be beaten by Juan Manuel Correa. Martins and O'Sullivan would temporarily switch places as both improved with 31 minutes remaining. O'Sullivan would lose his lap due to track limits. Then, Taylor Barnard and Andrea Kimi Antonelli set a lap to go third and fourth respectively. This would be until the two MP Motorsport drivers, Dennis Hauger and Franco Colapinto, would jump above the two drivers. Colapinto would go third and Hauger would be fourth. O'Sullivan would go back to second soon after. He would be beaten though by the Campos of Isack Hadjar, who had found great pace. Meanwhile, Victor Martins would improve yet again to go even quicker with a 1:39.237. Hauger and Richard Verschoor were next to put in good laps. Hauger would go second and Verschoor third fastest ahead of Hadjar. Verschoor, earlier in the session had a moment where he ran down the escape road at Saint-Devote (turn 1). A similar moment would happen for Jeddah feature race winner Fittipaldi, who ran off at the same place. A difficult session it was turning into for the Brazilian talent. Colapinto would have been feeling good after a quality weekend at Imola where he grabbed his maiden Formula 2 win in Imola - after making a great last lap pass on Paul Aron. He would not have been wanting to end the session with his car at Rascasse in the wall. The red flag was introduced. The session would get back underway as the rain was continuing to fall and lashing down a bit harder, as Martins found out when running down the escape road. Josh Durksen also had a moment down into Saint-Devote and would be unable to continue. His session was over down at the escape road. No red flag would be required. Drivers were struggling all over the circuit and championship leader Zane Maloney would run off at Mirabeau (turn 5). With 12 minutes to go, Martins' time was standing strong at the top of the time sheets with a 0.601s gap over second place Dennis Hauger of MP Motorsport. The conditions were starting to get treacherous out on the Monte Carlo circuit, with drivers crawling round the circuit. The session was into the final 10 minutes. As the clock was ticking down towards six minutes remaining, the majority of the drivers headed for the pit lane as the standing water on circuit made things near impossible for the drivers to set lap times of any real threat to dislodge Martins. Drivers would head out with two minutes remaining in preparation for the end of session practice starts. With a chance of rain for Saturday's sprint race, getting a practice start on a wet surface would not be a bad idea. No more fast laps would be set and therefore Victor Martins would have the quickest time at the end of free practice. A 1:39.237 from Martins would be the best time. Dennis Hauger was second in his MP Motorsport, while Trident's Richard Verschoor was third. Martins' teammate Zak O'Sullivan was fifth, behind Isack Hadjar who was fourth. AIX Racing's Taylor Barnard was sixth ahead of Colapinto who was seventh with Andrea Kimi Antonelli eighth. Paul Aron was ninth and Jak Crawford completed the top 10. Formula 2 will return on Friday, as the weekend's Monaco action continues with the group qualifying. 2024 FIA Formula 2 Championship: Round 5 - Monaco free practice result
 Brandon Whiteside
Writer - f1journal.co.uk
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