Lynn flies to maiden GP2 pole

Alex Lynn

Reigning GP3 Series Champion Alex Lynn took his first GP2 pole position in today’s qualifying session at Budapest. The Briton set the fastest lap time of the day in a 1:28.022 pipping Series leader Stoffel Vandoorne from the top spot by 0.019s. Arthur Pic completed the top three.

The pitlane opened once again in scorching temperatures. The drivers fed onto the track eager to put their Soft Pirelli tires to good use. Raffaele Marciello seemed on a mission as he was the first man to dip under 1m29s on his first push lap, but Vandoorne went quicker and moved up to P1. Behind the battling pair, Pic was also working hard to be featured at the top of the standings. As most drivers returned to the pits for fresh rubber, the Frenchman was able to find a clear lap to improve on his lap time, but it was still not enough and he remained P3 as he too returned to the pits.

The DAMS duo were the first ones to re-join the track and Lynn took full advantage of this strategy: on a traffic-free circuit, he found some extra pace to clock in a lap time a hairsbreadth better than Vandoorne. With nine minutes left on the clock, the rest of the pack returned to the track and despite his best efforts, the Belgian driver was unable to improve as Lynn watched Vandoorne’ s failed attempts from the DAMS’ pitwall. Another threat came from Marciello as the Italian went green in sector 1 and then purple in sector 2, but lost precious time in the final sector. At the checkered flag, Pic put his head down on his last try and was able to better Marciello’s time to take P3.

But no one smiled wider than Lynn who celebrated his maiden pole with his team. Behind the top three, Marciello, Pierre Gasly, Jordan King, Rio Haryanto, Mitch Evans, Sergey Sirotkin and Nick Yelloly rounded up the top ten whilst title contender Alexander Rossi had to settle for eleventh and will have to fight hard to close the distance with his rivals.

Budapest – Qualifying Session*

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Alex Lynn	DAMS	1:28.022	11
2.	Stoffel Vandoorne	ART Grand Prix	1:28.041	12
3.	Arthur Pic	Campos Racing	1:28.154	13
4.	Raffaele Marciello	Trident	1:28.272	13
5.	Pierre Gasly	DAMS	1:28.361	12
6.	Jordan King	Racing Engineering	1:28.471	12
7.	Rio Haryanto	Campos Racing	1:28.538	11
8.	Mitch Evans	RUSSIAN TIME	1:28.608	11
9.	Sergey Sirotkin	Rapax	1:28.685	11
10.	Nick Yelloly	Hilmer Motorsport	1:28.782	11
11.	Alexander Rossi	Racing Engineering	1:28.807	11
12.	Nicholas Latifi	MP Motorsport	1:28.940	13
13.	André Negrao	Arden International	1:28.957	11
14.	Richie Stanaway	Status Grand Prix	1:29.038	11
15.	Robert Visoiu	Rapax	1:29.079	11
16.	Daniel De Jong	MP Motorsport	1:29.128	10
17.	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	1:29.198	11
18.	Nathanael Berthon	Daiko Team Lazarus	1:29.234	12
19	Sergio Canamasas	Hilmer Motorsport	1:29.315	11
20.	Julian Leal	Carlin	1:29.351	11
21.	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	1:29.635	12
22.	Norman Nato	Arden International	1:29.641	11
23.	Marlon Stockinger	Status Grand Prix	1:29.665	11
24.	Sean Gelael	Carlin	1:29.803	13
25.	Rene Binder	Trident	1:29.811	13

*Car #27 Zoel Amberg was unfit to take part in the qualifying session