Support series action in F2, F3 gets underway in F1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2024

TDT | Manama                                                          

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

India’s Kush Maini and Sweden’s Dino Beganovic captured pole position yesterday for the feature races of their respective championships, taking place in support of the Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix 2024 at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) in Sakhir.

Maini secured the first pole of the new Formula 2 season, while Beganovic followed suit in Formula 3. Both feature races are scheduled to take place tomorrow right before the Kingdom of Bahrain’s 20th anniversary F1 race.

In yesterday’s F2 qualifying, Maini clocked a fastest lap of one minute 41.696 seconds to finish atop the timesheet. His Invicta Racing teammate Gabriel Bortoleto followed 0.219 seconds behind and will start alongside Maini on the front row.

Qualified behind them in third and fourth, respectively, were Isack Hadjar (+0.242s) of Campos Racing and Zane Maloney (+0.286s) of Rodin Motorsport. Dennis Hauger (+0.294s) of MP Motorsport took fifth on the grid, while set to start beside him in tomorrow’s feature event is Ritomo Miyata (+0.307s) in the other Rodin car.

Zak O’Sullivan (+0.318s) and Enzo Fittipaldi (+0.374s) completed the top eight in F2 qualifying. After finishing 10th in the session, Taylor Barnard of PHM AIX Racing will start in first place in today’s F2 sprint race, scheduled for 5.15pm. This is per F2’s unique qualifying rules.

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In F3 qualifying, Beganovic powered defending champions Prema Racing to first with a best lap of 1:46.431. He will be in the leading grid position for tomorrow’s F3 feature. Beganovic finished 0.167s ahead of Luke Browning of Hitech Pulse-Eight, while Beganovic’s Prema teammate Gabriele Mini (+0.170s) will start from row two alongside Sami Meguetounif (+0.364s) of Trident.

The two other Trident cars of Santiago Ramos (+0.367s) and Leonardo Fornaroli (+0.374s) qualified on row three, while MP Motorsport’s Tim Tramnitz (+0.397s) and ART Grand Prix’s Christian Mansell (+0.412s) are to start from row four. The leading 10 from F3’s 30- car grid is completed by Arvid Lindblad (+0.442s) of Prema and Max Esterson (+0.503s) of Jenzer Motorsport.

Meanwhile, by finishing 12th in qualifying, Laurens Van Hoepen of ART Grand Prix secured pole for today’s F3 sprint race, set for a 1.15pm flag-off. This is per F3’s unique qualifying rules. Earlier in the day yesterday, Hadjar set the pace in F2 practice with a best lap of 1:45.099, while Luke Browning led the F3 field in practice with a 1:47.828 lap.