| The sun had followed the FIA F2 teams to Spa Francorchamps for the Friday morning forty-five minute Practice session of the eighth round of the 2017 FIA Formula Two Championship with air and track temperatures of 22° and 31° respectively. Pirelli are supplying their and P Zero Yellow soft compound tyres for this weekend, the same as had been used in Hungary, as the tyres are worked hard on this exciting circuit.
The Racing Engineering drivers, Nyck De Vries and Gustav Malja, were soon out on the track and the first quick lap from Gustav saw him in 2nd on 1:58.596 but he was almost immediately surpassed by the new driver to the team, Nyck, who went just over a tenth of a second faster with a time of 1:58.469 with both cars on the P Zero White medium tyres. After fifteen minutes both men pitted so that their cars could have some set-up adjustments and after ten minutes they were back on track with just under twenty minutes of the session still to run. Nyck was back in the pits with ten minutes of the session left and then returning to the track with just five minutes left. Neither man improved on their earlier times so Nyck finished in 7th with Gustav just behind in 9th.
The weather had changed dramatically for the 30-minute Qualifying session with the rain that had affected the F1 practice session stopping but leaving the track wet and the air and track temperatures had fallen to 20° and 25° respectively. With the possibility of more rain it was important to set a time but not to make any mistakes as the track would improve if the rain did not return. Nyck lead the cars, all on wet tyres, on their first lap out of the pits and he was the first to set a “quick” time going fastest on a 2:25.126 which he then improved to 2:23.644. Gustav was also setting some competitive times going 4th with a time of 2:24.731 and times were falling as the drivers got used to the conditions.
On his sixth lap Nyck improved again to move up to 4th on 2:22.534 only to be replaced by Gustav with a lap of 2:22.330 but the times continued to fall and his next lap was a 2:22.069. With twelve minutes remaining Nyck returned to the pits followed shortly by Gustav so the both men could have a set of fresh wet tyres fitted. The two Racing Engineering cars returned to the track with just over six minutes to go but the rain had started to fall again on parts of the track and with just under four minutes left and just as it looked as if Nyck would improve further, setting a personal best in the first sector, the session was red-flagged following an incident to Sette Camara and the cars returned to the pits. The session resumed with all the cars trying to set one more fast lap but the rain was now falling harder and only two drivers were able to improve. With Gustav in 4th and Nyck, in his Racing Engineering debut, in sixth this was easily the best qualifying session for the team this season with both cars in the top six and both Gustav and Nyck will be aiming to finish on the podium in tomorrow’s Feature Race. |
