Victor Martins has another FIA F2 pole for feature race in Britain, as Nikola Tsolov makes it back-to-back poles in F3.
F2:
Victor Martins made good on his early promise in Free Practice to take the Aramco Pole Position Award, a sublime final lap putting the ART Grand Prix driver on top in a tightly fought Silverstone Qualifying. The Frenchman’s 1:39.731 was good enough to beat Rodin Motorsport’s Alexander Dunne by 0.065s, with Jak Crawford rounding out the top three for DAMS Lucas Oil.
After the early installation laps, it was PREMA Racing’s Sebastián Montoya that set the pace on a 1:41.225. However, that time was quickly beaten by Luke Browning and then Richard Verschoor, who was fastest by 0.331s over the Hitech TGR rookie thanks to a 1:40.777. The MP Motorsport driver was quickly dethroned by ART rival Martins, who went to the top on a 1:40.710 after the first set of laps.
Having lost an earlier time for exceeding track limits, Montoya went to fourth on his next lap, while Browning jumped up to sixth. The session was soon Red Flagged, with Rodin’s Amaury Cordeel having spun into a stoppage at the final corner. When the green light was waved with just over 18 minutes left in the session, the majority of the cars stayed in the pitlane, but a couple of drivers outside the top 10 returned to the track.
One of those was Dunne, and the Irishman set the fastest middle sector on his way to P3, 0.098s off Martins’ time. The rest of the field returned to the circuit with their brand new Soft tyres and there were improvements everywhere. Jak Crawford went fastest on a 1:39.971. But that was beaten by both Martins and Dunne, with the Frenchman in P1 with a 1:39.731.
The drivers then set off on another push lap, but no one could quite match Martins, who took his second Pole Position of the season. Dunne ended up in second, with Crawford third, Roman Stanek in fourth, and Montoya rounding out the top five. Joshua Duerksen led AIX Racing’s charge in sixth, ahead of Verschoor, Dino Beganovic, Kush Maini, with Leonardo Fornaroli rounding out the top 10. That means Fornaroli is set to line up on reverse grid pole for Saturday’s Silverstone Sprint Race.
Result: https://x.com/MsportXtra/status/1941142627434545265
F3:
Nikola Tsolov fired in a late lap to take his second Aramco Pole Position Award in a row. The Campos Racing driver had been bettered by title contender Rafael Câmara going into the final attempts, but one last improvement put the Bulgarian back to P1. He finished ahead of Ugo Ugochukwu, who wound up second for PREMA Racing, with Câmara having to settle for third.
With the tyre preparation laps complete, TRIDENT set the early pace with Câmara going to the top on a 1:46.318, 0.2s ahead of teammate Noah Stromsted in second. Ugochukwu split them on his first attempt, going to within 0.023s of the Brazilian’s effort. Tim Tramnitz delivered his first time to go top of the pile, but only briefly, as Tsolov followed to smash the time to beat with a 1:45.655, some 0.3s quicker than the MP driver in second.
Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak made it a Campos 1-3, slotting into third with his initial attempt. Everyone returned to the pitlane for a fresh set of Hard tyres and returning to the track with just over 15 minutes of the session remaining. Tramnitz cut the gap down to 0.2s to Tsolov, while teammate Bruno del Pino slotted into third for the Dutch team on their next attempts.
Behind them though, Câmara delivered a 1:45.176 to surge to the top of the times, 0.479s quicker than Tsolov’s initial benchmark time. Stromsted put in an improvement also to go third overall with just over 10 minutes to go, while Charlie Wurz followed a few minutes later to go fourth. With five minutes left, the circuit got busy once again. Théophile Nael moved Van Amersfoort Racing up to second to cut the deficit to provisional pole sitter Câmara down to 0.3s.
Tramnitz followed that up to go second for MP, 0.296s behind the TRIDENT, but Tsolov returned to P1 with a 1:45.043 with less than half a minute to go. Ugochukwu then went to P2 with his final attempt and just 0.023s off the top spot. Câmara had a poor middle sector on his last lap and could only manage third in the end.
Boya moved to fourth on his final turn ahead of Tramnitz and Wurz. Martinius Stenshorne followed in P7, with Laurens van Hoepen in eighth, Nael ninth and Noel León in 10th. Christian Ho wound up 11th for DAMS Lucas Oil, while Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak completed the top 12 positions and is set to line up on reverse grid pole for Saturday’s Sprint Race.
Result: https://x.com/MsportXtra/status/1941140235381002723
UPDATE: Following the conclusion of FIA Formula 3 Qualifying at Silverstone, MP Motorsport driver Alessandro Giusti has been penalised. During the session, the Frenchman was alleged to have impeded Van Amersfoort Racing’s Car 21 of Santiago Ramos at the exit of Turn 15.
The Stewards heard from both drivers and their team representatives and examined available video evidence following the session. They determined that Car 19 had unnecessarily impeded Car 21 and in line with previous precedent, applied the penalty of a three-place grid drop for both the Sprint and Feature Races this weekend.
[The story is as per press release]
