[caption id="attachment_8735" align="alignleft" width="4075"] Luca Ghiotto (ITA, UNI VIRTUOSI). An F2 image[/caption]

Silverstone, 12 July 2019: Indian racer Arjun Maini of Campos Racing clocked the 7th fastest time even as Luca Ghiotto carried his Austrian form into Round 7 to achieve his highest session placing since Barcelona, lapping quickest in FIA Formula 2 Free Practice, at Silverstone. The Italian followed up his pair of podium finishes in Spielberg with P1, ahead of DAMS’ Nicholas Latifi and teammate Guanyu Zhou. The other Indian in the F2 field Mahaveer Raghunathan was 19th for MP Motorsport.

Sauber Junior Team by Charouz duo Juan Manuel Correa and Callum Ilott set the early pace, immediately going under 1m 43s. The session was then briefly yellow flagged as Sean Gelael and Louis Delétraz made contact around Turn 6, which forced the PREMA man to retire from Free Practice.

British duo Jack Aitken and Jordan King fleetingly led proceedings, until Nyck De Vries and Sérgio Sette Câmara took turns at the top of the table, before ducking into the pits for a freshen up.

Ghiotto made the most of an emptying circuit to claim P1 ahead of De Vries and Sette Câmara, with a time of 1:39.166. Jack Aitken and Latifi both made attempts on his time, but neither could match him and settled for second and third.

With the session coming to a close, the Italian’s teammate Zhou demonstrated the pace of the UNI-Virtuosi machine this weekend and raced round for third place, nestling behind Ghiotto and Latifi. They were followed by Aitken, Sette Câmara and De Vries. Meanwhile, Arjun Maini made a return to the top seven in just his second round this season, beating Delétraz, Nobuharu Matsushita and King.

Ghiotto will look to continue his resurgence when the cars hit the track for qualifying at 3.55pm local time.

2019 FIA Formula 2 Championship – Round 7 Free Practice classification

DRIVER

TEAM

LAPTIME

LAPS

1

Luca Ghiotto

UNI-Virtuosi Racing

1:39.166

18

2

Nicholas Latifi

DAMS

1:39.281

20

3

Guanyu Zhou

UNI-Virtuosi Racing

1:39.327

18

4

Jack Aitken

Campos Racing

1:39.554

17

5

Sergio Sette Camara

DAMS

1:39.622

20

6

Nyck De Vries

ART Grand Prix

1:39.692

22

7

Arjun Maini

Campos Racing

1:39.899

20

8

Louis Deletraz

Carlin

1:40.034

21

9

Nobuharu Matsushita

Carlin

1:40.039

22

10

Jordan King

MP Motorsport

1:40.062

21

11

Mick Schumacher

PREMA Racing

1:40.141

17

12

Nikita Mazepin

ART Grand Prix

1:40.154

21

13

Giuliano Alesi

Trident

1:40.452

19

14

Callum Ilott

Sauber Junior Team by Charouz

1:40.735

22

15

Dorian Boccolacci

Trident

1:40.779

17

16

Anthoine Hubert

BWT Arden

1:40.789

21

17

Juan Manuel Correa

Sauber Junior Team by Charouz

1:40.878

21

18

Tatiana Calderon

BWT Arden

1:41.841

20

19

Mahaveer Raghunathan

MP Motorsport

1:42.792

19

20

Sean Gelael

PREMA Racing

2:00.608

3