F2: Schumacher beats out Deletraz for top spot in Free Practice

Mick Schumacher
Mick Schumacher

Mick Schumacher got his Round 5 off to the ideal start, beating out Louis Delétraz by 0.031s to finish first in FIA Formula 2 Free Practice at Silverstone. The German set his time of 1:39.783 early into the session and it wouldn’t be beaten. Dan Ticktum completed the top three.

Jack Aitken set the fastest of the early push laps around his home circuit with a time of 1:41.049, but his British counterpart, Callum Ilott, quickly improved upon this to dip below 1m 41s and take P1.

Schumacher flew into first at the 15 minutes mark, and then bettered the time on his next fast lap, with two fastest sectors to break the 1m 40s barrier. His teammate dived in beneath him, six tenths slower.

Delétraz and Ticktum were able to separate the PREMAs, doing just about enough to take second and third and demote Shwartzman to P4. Nikita Mazepin thought he had toppled them all, setting two purple sectors, only to see his laptime deleted for exceeding track limits.

A red flag was shown after Marino Sato’s car went up in smoke. Thankfully, the Trident racer was safely out of the car.

Nothing changed when the cars returned to the track, as they shifted their focus to gathering data ahead of Qualifying later today, at 5pm local time.

Sean Gelael took the final of the top five slots, with his best FP session of the season so far. He was followed by Yuki Tsunoda, Aitken, Jehan Daruvala, Guanyu Zhou and Christian Lundgaard.

Silverstone F2 practice results

POS DRIVER TEAM GAP
1 Mick Schumacher Prema Racing 0.000s
2 Louis Deletraz Charouz Racing System 0.031s
3 Dan Ticktum DAMS 0.201s
4 Robert Shwartzman Prema Racing 0.261s
5 Sean Gelael DAMS 0.369s
6 Yuki Tsunoda Carlin 0.406s
7 Jack Aitken Campos Racing 0.469s
8 Jehan Daruvala Carlin 0.497s
9 Guanyu Zhou UNI-Virtuosi 0.500s
10 Christian Lundgaard ART Grand Prix 0.527s
11 Callum Ilott UNI-Virtuosi 0.565s
12 Luca Ghiotto Hitech Grand Prix 0.567s
13 Nikita Mazepin Hitech Grand Prix 0.587s
14 Marcus Armstrong ART Grand Prix 0.709s
15 Pedro Piquet Charouz Racing System 0.816s
16 Nobuharu Matsushita MP Motorsport 0.863s
17 Felipe Drugovich MP Motorsport 1.272s
18 Giuliano Alesi BWT HWA RACELAB 1.513s
19 Marino Sato Trident 1.585s
20 Artem Markelov BWT HWA RACELAB 1.768s
21 Roy Nissany Trident 1.929s
22 Guilherme Samaia Campos Racing 2.933s