Wickens on pole in Valencia

After 30 minutes of qualifying practice, Robert Wickens took pole position for the opening round of the championship. Formula 2 in Valencia, Friday. The Canadian set a time of 1:27.775 at the start of the session and beat the German Tobias Hegewald by 0.014 sec. The Spaniard Andy Soucek, who set the best time in the first free practice session, will start on the second row alongside Carlos Iaconelli. Finally, the Frenchman Julien Jousse, who had only set a modest 14th time during Free 1, will start on the third row since he set the 6th time at 0.338 sec. by Wickens.

Qualifying turned out to be much closer than the morning sessions. In fact, the first fifteen drivers are within the same second. On Saturday, the first race will start at 14:20 p.m. but before that, qualifying for race 2 will take place from 9:45 a.m.

Report of Free 1 and 2:

Under the Valencia sun, the first laps of the wheels allowed the Spaniard Andy Soucek and the Italian David Piscopo to shine during the two free practice sessions. During the first thirty minutes, Soucek was the only one to go below the 1:28 mark, achieving a time of 1:27.800. Second and third at three and five tenths respectively, the German Tobias Hegewald and the Englishman Robert Wickens also had an interesting session. “ I just attacked for one lap and the time went down quite easily », noted Soucek. “ This is the first official session. It doesn?t say anything about the course of the race but it?s always good to be at the front », he concluded.

For his part, Frenchman Julien Jousse failed to set a better time than 14th, almost a second and a half behind the best time. The native of Saint Raphaël still managed to set the 9th time during the second session but remained far (+1.241 sec.) from the time set by Edoardo Piscopo. The latter managed to dislodge Andy Soucek from the top of the timesheet at the end of the session when he set off one last time with a set of new tires. Moreover, the first four all achieved their best lap in the final moments of Free 2. “ I didn't expect to be so fast? I thought I would be in the top 10 but not be the fastest », enthused the vice-champion of F3 Italy.