F2 France: Nicholas Latifi had a busy Friday
THE CANADIAN TOOK PART IN FP1 FOR WILLIAMS TO THEN CONCENTRATE ON HIS F2 DUTIES AND QUALIFIED SIXTH
Nicholas Latifi was back at the wheel of Williams F1 car for FP1 for the second Friday in a row following his outing in the Canadian GP two weeks ago.
“It was good to have another FP1 session so close to my drive in Canada. I still had the rhythm of a Formula One car and I feel more comfortable,” Latifi mentioned. “However, this morning the track conditions were tricky making it difficult to maintain consistent grip in the tyres from lap-to-lap. All in all, I was pleased with how today went, I kept it clean and got the car back to George in one piece.”
He ended FP1 in 18th place(1:37.147) ahead of Williams teammate Robert Kubica. Latest lap in FP1 went to Lewis Hamilton with 1:32.738.
With his DAMS F2 program and already warmed up, Latifi took the early lead in the only practice session. Only to finish eight(1.45:054) as teammate Sérgio Sette Câmara ended the session with the fastest time at 1.44:009. His lap time was six tenth quicker than second place Nyck De Vries(ART Grand Prix) and Luca Ghiotto in third.
The qualifying session also took place today and again Sérgio Sette Câmara demonstrated his dominance of the Paul-Ricard Circuit with a time three tenths of a second faster(1:43.024) than Guanyu Zhou(UNI-Virtuosi Racing) in second and four tenths over Jack Aitken(Campos Racing) in third.
The session was red flagged on a couple of occasion and it was a race against the clock for top Championship contenders Latifi, De Vries and Luca Ghiotto to better their position. At last, Latifi could only manage a sixth place for the start of Race 1 tomorrow, his best time six tenths off the pole time of Sette Câmara. Championship rivals De Vries is to start fourth and Ghiotto 11th.
Race 1 is to take place Saturday afternoon at 4:45pm local time(10:45am Eastern time).
Image: FIA Formula 2
