Kush Maini takes pole in Friday’s Qualifying session, crossing the line with a 1.28.896. This lap put him ahead of P2 by 0.196 seconds.
The ART driver secured his second pole position of the season in a settled session, looking to carry this momentum through the weekend. His team mate Inthraphuvasak finished 0.3 seconds behind in P5.
As the session began, drivers trailed out of the pits, many on the medium tyre before switching over to the softs.
Joshua Dürksen and Laurens Van Hoepen were the first to begin their flying laps, pushing their cars around the Hungarian circuit.
The Invicta drivers looked to be battling their cars through the final sector as they carried a lot of grip and front end into the corners, making mistakes come easily. This was shown when Dürksen finished his lap by running off the track in the final corner in a similar incident to Rafael Câmara in practice, causing his lap to be deleted.
As the first five minutes of the session ticked over, Oliver Goethe led the pace. The remaining drivers with no time set made their way onto the circuit, beginning their out lap before pushing for their first flying lap time.
Dürksen continued on for a second flying lap on the same set of soft tyres but didn’t improve, instead crossing the line with yellow sectors. Goethe followed, setting a purple sector but with the soft tyres trailing off, the MP Motorsport driver didn’t improve either.
The mistakes weren’t over as Dunne ran over the kerb on his second lap on his soft tyre set. This caused the Irishman to ultimately pull into the pits for fresh tyres.
Noel León seized top of the leader board with a strong lap, with Maini following in second, only one hundredth ahead of championship leader Tsolov in third.
The Invicta car of Câmara topped this group at the halfway point of the session. A pole at this circuit would put him alongside names like George Russell and Oscar Piastri, who have taken three consecutive F2 pole positions.
The strong laps continued for Câmara as he beat his own time by five hundredths of a second on the same tyre set as his previous lap. This pushed the Brazilian even further ahead of the field behind.
More flying laps were beginning across the grid, but drivers were starting to struggle as they pushed their cars to the limit. Villagómez had a time deleted for braking too late and cutting the chicane, followed by Maini losing time as he dipped into the gravel.
Red Bull junior Tsolov set his sights on his first pole position, but a snap on the exit of Turn 9 hampered his lap. However, he crossed the line at the top of the timings by exactly one hundredth of a second.
Invicta looked for a strong performance when a swift approaching Dürksen set purple sectors, ultimately seizing provisional pole. This didn’t last long as with only five minutes to go, Maini put himself ahead.
Tsolov suffered another snap as he pushed to catch the front runners, potentially costing him an improvement on his lap.
With two minutes to go, Van Hoepen broke into the top 5, crossing the line in P4. After topping the earlier Practice session, Beganovic put his car in P6 before other drivers began to complete their final flying laps.
The timer ticked down to zero, leaving Villagómez, Leon and Câmara to cross the line, all improving on their times. Villagómez narrowly missed out on the top 10, whilst Câmara and Leon crossed the line second and third respectively.
Maini completed a last moment fast lap which put the Indian driver on pole for Sunday’s Feature Race, followed by Câmara, León, Dürksen and Inthraphuvasak completing the final top 5.
Montoya will start Saturday’s Sprint Race from pole, looking to put in a strong performance for PREMA.
You can catch all of the F2 action when the Budapest Sprint Race begins tomorrow at 14:15 Local Time (BST+1).
