Rodin Motorsport took home their first and second 1-2 qualifying finishes in Formula 2, claiming both feature race poles around Baku through the modified qualifying format. Alex Dunne will start tomorrow’s feature race from first, joined by teammate Martinius Stenshorne on the front row. The pair will line up in reverse order for the feature race on Sunday after Stenshorne achieved his maiden pole in the championship. Feeder Series heard from the duo and the two third-place finishers – Noel León and Rafael Câmara – after the sessions.

By Cliona Sheerin

Almost six years to the day that they took their last qualifying 1-2 in Sochi in 2020 as Carlin, Rodin claimed their first and second front-row lockouts under their current guise. Dunne took his first pole of the season and third overall in his F2 career in the first session, with his rookie teammate Stenshorne only 0.033 seconds behind in second. That was before Stenshorne flipped in the script in qualifying two, setting a 1:53.728 to beat his teammate to the second pole of the day by almost half a second. 

In a pair of sessions that were all about stringing a lap together while finding slipstreams and avoiding traffic, Dunne felt his team excelled.

“When you’re in a position where the car is feeling really good and you feel really comfortable, putting a lap together becomes a lot easier,” Dunne told Feeder Series in the post-qualifying press conference. 

“For today, I felt like I didn’t need to do an amazing lap to be at the front, which, as a driver, makes it a lot easier for you. Finding slipstream was probably the hardest thing, managing traffic, putting yourself in the right positions, putting yourself behind the right car as well. For me, that was definitely quite difficult. But in terms of driving and just putting a lap together, for me at least, today was on the easier side of things.”

Stenshorne too was pleased with his performance on the track where he made his F2 debut one year ago.

“It was not easy,” Stenshorne said. “Getting the right tow, I think we did really good at that as well as putting the lap together here. It’s not easy with the walls close and getting everything out of the car. We maximised almost what we had. I think Q2 was really good. Q1 maybe I left a bit on the table, but it’s more than I could have asked for and a lot more than I expected starting today, so I’m really happy.”

Qualifying 1

Dunne’s first pole of the season in qualifying one means he will start the first feature race of the weekend from the front.

The pole time was set on the first of the flying laps, with Dunne setting purple sectors in the first two portions of the lap on his way to a 1:55.383. Kush Maini slotted into second, two tenths off in a reversal of the top two from practice earlier in the day. Stenshorne was third followed by the Campos duo of León and Nikola Tsolov. Câmara rounded out the top six after the first flyers, electing to position himself at the rear of the pack before benefitting from the tow in the latter stages of the lap.

A train of F2 cars made their way down to Turn 7 at a snail’s pace as they prepared for the second runs, Dino Beganovic the instigator with no one wanting to dish out the tow to his competitors behind. After sorting it out amongst themselves, several drivers made improvements on their second laps. Dunne set another fastest sector in sector one before dropping off over the rest of the lap. Stenshorne made up ground to his teammate, joining him on the front row with a time just 0.033s off provisional pole. Maini was demoted to fourth as León pushed himself into third.

“For me, I felt like I did the lap of my life,” León told Feeder Series. “I’m very happy. Obviously it was difficult to find the good slipstream, to put it all together. It’s a lot of corners. First time for me here in Baku. You always push a little bit more and you don’t know where is the limit, so for me it was difficult. I’m happy that at the end of the day I maximised quali. I think the step that I did from free practice to quali was a good one and we’ll look forward for tomorrow.” 

The top three in the championship had a mixed end to their sessions. Câmara moved up to fifth with the aid of a tow provided by teammate Joshua Dürksen. Tsolov, meanwhile, was not so fortunate when it came to finding a slipstream, getting boxed in behind Cian Shields before being forced to abandon his lap. Crucially, he managed to remain inside the top 10, in the final position in fact, meaning he will start tomorrow’s sprint race from pole. 

Minì fared even worse. A messy first qualifying saw him lock up and run off the road at the first corner on his third lap, before a final run interrupted by traffic resulted in no improvement. The MP Motorsport driver will start both races from 14th tomorrow.

Behind Câmara came the Prema pair of Mari Boya and Sebastián Montoya. Beganovic, the polesitter last time out, qualified eighth ahead of Laurens van Hoepen, who will line up alongside Tsolov in the sprint race tomorrow.

Qualifying 2

After a 10-minute pause, the second qualifying session got underway to set the grid for Sunday’s feature race. Dunne picked up where he left off, going top of the timings albeit briefly, usurped first by León and then by Câmara with a 1:54.227. 

The second session took on a different character to the first. While finding a slipstream and track position were still a priority, the flying laps did not come as thick and fast as in the first session. Instead, a mid-session lull occurred as teams weighed up whether or not to switch onto a fresh set of supersofts, with an extra set being allotted as a result of the additional session. 

Campos appeared to be done for the day, their drivers León and Tsolov returning to the pits as they sat second and fourth in the order. Câmara joined them shortly afterwards, electing not to go for another run, a decision that cost him the chance to fight for pole.

“In the end we didn’t really maximise,” Câmara said. “We could have done a better job and what we did was, in a way, not really what we needed to be there fighting for pole position. In the end, the first lap was good enough that we’re still in a place where we can fight, and I’m quite happy with what we did and from there we can grab some good points.” 

Meanwhile, Maini and Boya improved on the new rubber to vault into the top three, Boya setting a purple first sector as he did so. Dunne and Stenshorne also made the switch to fresh supersofts, a decision that proved its worth in the final stages of the session.

Dunne was improving on Câmara’s pole time through the second sector, eventually edging him out by half a tenth when he crossed the line. But it was Stenshorne who was setting the timing screens alight, maintaining a monstrous pace across the 6.003-km circuit to go almost half a second quicker than his teammate. 

Câmara slipped down to third ahead of Boya and Maini, with León and Tsolov dropping to sixth and eighth. Between them came Van Hoepen in seventh, with Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak and Montoya rounding out the top 10. With only one sprint race, there will be no reversal of the top 10 from the second qualifying.

Minì again qualified outside the top 10, this time finishing 16th in what was overall a difficult day of qualifying for the driver who sits third in the drivers’ standings. 

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency