Motopark’s Juri Vips and Prema’s Robert Shwartzman took pole in Race 2 & Race 3 of FIA European Formula 3 Championship at Hockenheim.
A close fight for Race 2 pole at Hockenheim saw Vips take the top spot from Prema’s Schumacher (1m32.402s) in a last-lap dash with a lap time of 1m32.284s as the Estonian beat the German by 0.118s.
Until Vips’ final lap, Schumacher headed teammate Shwartzman (1m32.406s) and Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala (1m32.408s) – the trio separated by just the 0.006s. The gap stayed the same in the end but Schumacher lost pole to Vips.
HitechGP’s Alex Palou (1m32.489s) was 0.081s behind Daruvala in fifth with Carlin’s Julian Hanses (1m32.630s) surprising the field with sixth place ahead of teammate Sacha Fenestraz (1m32.636s), beating the Frenchman by 0.006s.
The Top 10 was completed by Prema’s Ralf Aron, Motopark’s Fabio Scherer and HitechGP’s Enaam Ahmed. In what could eventually decide the title, Prema’s Marcus Armstrong and Motopark’s Dan Ticktum were 14th and 15th respectively.
Position 11-23: Marino Sato, Guanyu Zhou, Jonathan Aberdein, Armstrong, Ticktum, Ferdinand Habsburg, Sophia Floersch, Ben Hingeley, Sebastian Fernandez, Artem Petrov, Frederik Vetsi, Nikita Troitskiy, Kevyan Andres and Ameya Vaidyanathan.
Race 3
Taking the second-best time from the session, it was Ferrari junior Shwartzman (1m32.443s) heading teammate Schumacher (1m32.500s) for pole with Vips (1m32.554s) slotting in third alongside Palou (1m32.558s) on row two.
Aron (1m32.663s) improved to fifth for the final race with Daruvala (1m32.684s) dropping to sixth ahead of Fenestraz (1m32.685s) while Zhou (1m32.735s), Ahmed (1m32.738s) and Ticktum (1m32.773s) completed the Top 10.
Position 11-23: Habsburg, Aberdein, Sato, Armstrong, Scherer, Hanses, Floersch, Hingeley, Vesti, Fernandez, Petrov, Troitskiy, Andres and Vaidyanathan.