Marcus Armstrong had a quiet day in F2 testing as the Kiwi didn’t break into the top ten in either the morning or afternoon session on day two of F2 testing. Meanwhile, Red Bull junior Jehan Daruvala was the fastest driver at the end of the day – continuing an impressive run for the Castrol Toyota Racing Series graduate.
All bar Jack Aitken had set a time in the opening 15 minutes of the morning session. Guanyu Zhou was the fastest of the early runners, setting a 1:46.041 on an increasingly dusty track owing to windy conditions.
Nikita Mazepin stopped out on track which subsequently brought out the red flag, halting the session. Callum Ilott briefly led the session before being displaced by Artem Markelov, as the experienced Russian set the first time in the 1m 43s for the session.
Focus switched to longer runs for the remainder of the session as Markelov’s time remained untouched. That was until a late flurry of times as the session drew to a close, with Mazepin posting the fastest time with less than ten minutes to go.
Mazepin would carry his pace through to the afternoon session, taking less than half an hour to beat the time he set in the morning, dropping below 1m 42s for the first time on day two.
Red Bull juniors and Carlin team-mates Jehan Daruvala and Yuki Tsunoda headed the time sheets on their tenth tour of the circuit in the afternoon. Although they were displaced by Jack Aitken, Luca Ghiotto and Sean Gelael and experience shone through. F3 champion Robert Shwartzman worked his way into the top three as he continued to demonstrate his pace in an F2 car.
In the final moments of the session, Daruvala shot to the top with a 1:41.260 on his final lap. His time would not be eclipsed for the remainder of the session. He was followed by Zhou, Pedro Piquet, Mick Schumacher and Sergey Sirotkin.
Armstrong finished 19th and 13th in the morning and afternoon sessions respectively.
