Prema’s Oliver Bearman set the fastest time of Formula 2 qualifying in Barcelona with a time of 1:23.546s.
The Prema driver will start Sunday’s Feature Race ahead of Enzo Fittipaldi, who trailed Bearman by 0.077s.
Jack Doohan set the third fastest time with Ayumu Iwasa in fourth followed by Theo Pourchaire and Dennis Hauger.
After qualifying tenth fastest, Amaury Cordeel will start Saturday’s Sprint Race from the reverse-grid pole.
After three installation laps, representative lap times began to flood in across the grid with Doohan able to claim the fastest time which was 0.374s faster than Iwasa’s, in the opening stages of the session.
The current championship leader, Prema’s Frederik Vesti, was held back in the pit lane by his team along with his teammate Oliver Bearman until the rest of the grid had completed their first push laps.
It was clear that high tyre degradation was playing a large impact as the first half of qualifying progressed and that fresh tyres would be crucial for claiming the fastest times of the session.
Next, it was the turn of Red Bull junior Hauger on fresh soft tyres to make an impact at the top of the timing screen – he was able to go 0.155s faster than Doohan.
Prema’s Bearman and Vesti, meanwhile, were only able to go 4th and 8th fastest respectively as the session approached the halfway point.
Minutes later, Hauger, on a push lap, came close to tangling with Pourchaire around Turn 3 – the stewards confirmed that they would investigate the incident after the session.
With 11 minutes of the session remaining, Hauger looked confident, even getting out of the car and shaking hands with members of the MP Motorsport team.
The confidence was short live, however, as the times began to tumble once again. Fittipaldi set the fastest first two sectors to claim the fastest time of the session so far, followed by Pourchaire who had crossed the line earlier but with a time 0.121s slower than Fittipaldi’s.
Meanwhile, Kush Maini made an improvement on his time to claim the fourth fastest time of the session behind Hauger – but Maini couldn’t improve further leaving him 14th fastest overall.
MP Motorsport were forced to respond, sending both Hauger and Jehan Daruvala out onto the track.
Championship leader Vesti, remained low on the timing screen, just 15th fastest with 6 minutes remaining and only improving to 8th fastest by the end of the session.
Meanwhile, Van Amersfoort Racing drivers, Juan Manuel Correa and Richard Verschoor were occupying the sixth and seventh fastest times but were pushed down to 11th and 12th respectively.
Bearman though, was looking rapid through the first and second sectors, he set the fastest time with two minutes to go, just millimetres from breaching the track limits through the final corner.
Doohan was quickly approaching the pit straight with the fastest middle sector but wasn’t able to better Fittipaldi’s second-fastest time.
Iwasa attempted a second push lap but he wasn’t able to better his fourth fastest time.
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