Callum Ilott was once a☂gain the man to beat in For﷽mula 2 qualifying as he claimed his fifth pole position of the season.

Ilott’s pole in Bahrain means he closes the gap to championship leader Mick Schumacher to 18 points, with four poi🍨nts behind handed to the polesitter in ♎F2.

Schumacher struggled for pace throughout qualifying and is set to st♚art tomorrow’s feature race from tenth on the grid.

It wasn’t plain sailing for the other championship hopefuls with Yuki Tsunoda set to start from the back of the grid🌠 having spun his Carlin at Turn 12 resulting in the first red flag peꦍriod.

Tsunoda had been on cours🦋e to move into second place behind Ilott but 🐭carried too much speed Turn 12, eventually spinning off at Turn 13.

The Japanese driver was unable to get his Carlin car going again and will be forced to start from 22nd on thꦕe grid.

Once Tsunoda’s car was cleared, the order didn’t change too𒆙 much as the wind picked up.

Ilott’s time remained untouched, while Felipe Drugovich got wit𓂃hin 0.4s of the Ferrari ♔junior to qualify second.

Dan Ticktum will start third a💖head of Marcus Armstrong and Guanyu Zhou.

Giuliano Alesi enjoyed one of his finest performances of the season in sixth place but caused the second red flag of the s♍ession as he ground to a ♍halt at Turn 1 in the dying few minutes.

Nikita Mazepin will start from seventh and has an outside shot of the title, trailing Schumacher by 51 pointಌs going into this weekend’s event.

Jehan Daruvala and Christian Lund🅠g✨aard will line up just ahead of Schumacher in eighth and ninth place.