ART Grand Prix’s Kush Maini produced a stunning lap at the Hungaroring to secure his second pole of the season, edging out Invicta Racing’s Rafael Câmara and Campos Racing’s Noel León by just over a tenth of a second. After the session, Maini, Câmara, León and reverse-grid polesitter Sebastián Montoya spoke to Feeder Series about how qualifying went down.

By August Bamford

On his initial laps, Maini was on the back foot, ending up third behind early pacesetters Câmara and León. All three drivers had chosen to run in a second pack of drivers with the field split into two distinct groups for qualifying. 

After that group returned to the pit lane for fresh rubber soon after the halfway point of the session, Invicta’s Joshua Dürksen in the first group put himself on provisional pole, but Maini hooked up a blistering lap of 1:28.896 to go top of the charts with five minutes and 32 seconds remaining, two tenths ahead of Dürksen.

When both Câmara and León made their final runs late into the session, neither could overhaul the benchmark set by Maini, and the Alpine junior held on to earn his second pole position of the year ahead of both the Invicta and Campos challengers.

“Everything leads up to the second run with the lower fuel,” Maini told Feeder Series in the post-qualifying press conference. “For us today, we wanted to wait that first bit out and see if hopefully the track got cleaned up a bit. It was quite stable in the end but also knowing what the target is, knowing where the group is on the track lap time–wise, I think it helps, getting your eye in and sort of knowing what to expect.

“When we came in from the first run, we went straight out again, so keeping a bit of heat in the brakes helped the warm-up for me in the second lap. It’s quite a short track and not a lot of time to warm the tyres up, so that helped. With the red flag, it can always be a thing, but today was good.”

Hitech’s Colton Herta set the first representative lap time of the 30-minute qualifying session with a 1:31.157. Rapid improvements from others meant he was quickly displaced, with championship leader Nikola Tsolov of Campos becoming the sixth different driver to go quickest within the opening minute of the session. His title rival Gabriele Minì of MP Motorsport then slotted in just 0.193 seconds behind.

Dürksen’s Invicta car, meanwhile, was looking dicey. He had an off-track excursion at the final corner on his first flying lap, repeating a mistake he made in practice.

Teams deployed contrasting tactics throughout the session, with two distinct groups of drivers alternating track time to build their laps. Some in the first group of drivers attempted to push for second flying laps on their used softs, but the majority of the improvements after the first 10 minutes came from drivers who had just come out of the pits, such as Câmara. Rodin’s Alex Dunne attempted a second flying lap but could only improve to seventh, 0.571s off Tsolov’s pace.

With 16 minutes left on the clock, León went quickest, narrowly ahead of Maini. But Câmara’s patience was rewarded as he seized provisional pole with a 1:29.380, an impressive time from the four-time F2 polesitter who won the F3 crown here last year. After a cooldown lap, Câmara did himself one better, shaving off another 0.057s to extend his advantage.

The original group of drivers that included Tsolov and Minì emerged from the pits for their final runs with 11 minutes remaining. The Bulgarian delivered, snatching the top spot by 0.010s over Câmara with a 1:29.313. Moments later, Dürksen surged to provisional pole with a 1:29.106, but he too was usurped by Kush Maini’s decisive 1:28.896. 

With three minutes remaining, the times stopped tumbling, leaving the pressure squarely on Câmara and León to best Maini’s time. León threw everything at his final attempt to move onto the front row from 11th with a 1:29.091, only to be immediately pipped by Câmara’s 1:29.013. 

“I’m the last in the pit lane, so I want to be alone, try to do my own thing on the warm-up,” León said. “We needed to look today for a different strategy. Kush did it really well because for me, I got a bit of traffic and that’s a risky thing when people push on the second run. Today it was okay, but it could be that someone doesn’t get out of the way and you don’t have the lap. It was a bit risky, but knowing our pit position, it was the best thing to do. I’m happy that today worked out, but it was close to not working.”

“Second run is always a bit of a key in F2,” Câmara explained further. “It happens almost all the time that you improve on the second lap, so you know you have to deliver on that one. You maybe have a bit of a margin to do a mistake, to explore a bit on lap one, but lap two, you always want to deliver and be there.

“For me and Noel it was more risky, in case it was a red flag or something. In the end, we had enough time so it was not that bad, but going in the second group can be a bit more tricky. But indeed, it was everything okay, and we were able to execute it how we wanted.”

Ultimately, neither driver could dethrone Maini, who sealed pole position by 0.117s over the Invicta driver. León and Dürksen finished the session third and fourth. 

It was a stellar session for ART Grand Prix, with Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak qualifying fifth. That result means both Invicta and ART head into the feature race with two cars in the top five, strengthening their chances of scoring heavily while also adding an intriguing strategic dimension to managing teammates during the mandatory pit stop.

“In Spa, for example, if you’re on the same strategy, the second driver would normally have to go a lap longer in Spa because I think you’d lose three or four seconds,” Maini explained. “Here it’s less tricky that way, especially if the softs work well. I think the pit window is quite big. [Putting] two cars in the top five shows the work the team’s been doing, and Tas is getting stronger and stronger. In that sense, a very positive day for the team. Going into the weekend. I think it’s going to be an interesting one, but strategy-wise, it’s not as risky as some other tracks.”

“In terms of strategy, we know we have the priority. It shouldn’t be a big problem if you’re doing one more lap or one less,” Câmara said. “It’s just a positive thing that us both are up there, and [it] shows that we are a strong team.”

Trident’s Laurens van Hoepen slotted into sixth. Tsolov’s seventh-place finish sets up another intriguing weekend for him as he will have to charge through the pack once again. Beganovic consolidated his strong form this weekend with eighth position, Minì qualified ninth, and Prema’s Sebastián Montoya secured a second consecutive reverse-grid pole by finishing tenth.

“It was quite difficult to know exactly where we were considering everyone was on different strategies,” Montoya told Feeder Series in the paddock. “Some people went early; some people went a lot later than us as well. I think this new asphalt makes it really difficult to use past references. You can see, even in F1, people locking up a lot into Turn 1. There are some patches in T1 and T12 – that makes the car pretty inconsistent. Overall, I think it changed a lot the dynamic of the track. The wind’s been really aggressive all day.

“The pace of the car is really competitive. I don’t think I would have had enough to fight for pole, but for sure we could put it in the top 10, as we did. I think the biggest thing is making sure you put the lap together. You could even see between Câmara and Maini the difference between sector one and sector three. It’s not so much pure pace; it’s just making sure you balance the tyres throughout the lap. I think we did a really good job of that today.”

Outside the top 10, it was a difficult session for Rodin Motorsport. Dunne, who was forced to abort his first flying lap on his final runs, said he had a suspension failure during qualifying. Nursing the damaged car, he could only improve to 17th on his second attempt, marking his worst qualifying result of the year and his first time outside the top four. Teammate Martinius Stenshorne could do no better than 11th, just missing out on reverse-grid pole by three thousandths.

Additional reporting by Michael McClure

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency