Who said Formula 2 racing was any less entertaining than its bigger, more prestigious sibling?

Qualifying for the Azerbaijan GP took place just hours after the first practice session in F1 was abandoned but was no less dramatic.

Earlier on, George Russell drove over a loose drain cover which severely damaged his car, only for the recovery truck to hit a low bridge on its return to the garage and consequently spilled oil all over the Williams. 

In F2 qualifying, though, it was two marshals who were thanking their lucky stars after walking away from a potentially very dangerous incident.

Between turns 7 and 8 of the street circuit, Sean Gelael ground to a halt after experiencing some trouble with his brakes.

As Gelael desperately tried to restart the car he started to get wheeled back by the marshals.

With the marshals at either side of the car, the Prema suddenly gained speed quicker than the marshals could run and they were unable to avoid the fast-moving wheels.

Thankfully enough, both of the men ran over suffered no serious injuries and came away from the incident relatively unscathed.

Japanese driver Nobuharu Matsushita, representing Carlin dominated qualifying as he cruised to a comfortable time of 1:54.555, earning himself the top spot by 0.444 seconds.

Dutch driver Nyck de Vries will start the GP in 2nd spot, Italian Luca Ghiotto finished just 0.038 seconds behind for UNI-Virtuosi.

From there on the times began to disperse but the highest placed Englishman, Jordan King, qualified in fifth behind Brazilian Sergio Sette Camara.

King finished with a time of 1:55.704, leaving him 1.149 seconds away from Matsushita's leading time.

It has certainly been an entertaining qualifying event and if the real Grand Prix is anything like it, we are in store for quite the spectacle.