Bold strategy earns León F2 pole position in Austria

Campos Racing’s Noel León took his first ever F2 pole in qualifying at the Red Bull Ring on Friday, beating Alexander Dunne and teammate Nikola Tsolov to P1. The Mexican rookie used an empty track to his advantage to complete a 1m15.544s, beating Dunne by over 0.1s to take pole. 

It was a great start for Campos, with León leading Tsolov by just 0.015s in an early 1-2 for the team thanks to a 1m16.283s. The drivers were able to push on for second laps on their Supersoft tires and León improved to put 0.179s between himself and Tsolov.

But he was soon demoted to P2 by Rafael Câmara, who went to P1 with a 1m16.062s. The Invicta Racing driver led a small group of cars at the top of the timesheets that returned to the pitlane after their second lap, with a few drivers down the order choosing to do one more.

While the rest of his rivals waited in the pitlane, León returned to the track on a new set of Supersofts to complete a 1m15.544s – 0.508s quicker than Câmara. The Campos driver returned to the pitlane after that lap, while the other 21 cars came out on track, watching on as his rivals set personal best sector times.

But nobody could match León, with Dunne going the closest, 0.129s behind in P2. They pushed on for second laps but León’s time went unbeaten, giving him his maiden FIA Formula 2 pole position.

Dunne stayed in second ahead of Tsolov, with Gabriele Minì in P4 and Câmara in P5. Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak was sixth for ART Grand Prix, ahead of Oliver Goethe. Rafael Villagómez finished eighth fastest, ahead of Trident’s John Bennett while Sebastián Montoya rounded out the top 10 for PREMA Racing.

That means Montoya is set to start from reverse grid pole in Saturday’s Sprint Race, where lights out is scheduled for 2:15pm local time.

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