Victor Martins took feature FIA F2 race pole in Austria, while Gregoire Saucy did so in F3 amid lap deletions.
F2:
The F2 qualifying in Austria saw loads of lap deletions in the first run where ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins led the way at the halfway mark with a 1m14.926s time. The Top 3 had Virtuosi’s Amaury Cordeel and Prema’s Frederik Vesti.
Martins’ teammate Theo Pourchaire slotted in fourth from Virtuosi’s Jack Doohan. There was black and white flag shown to Prema’s Oliver Bearman for too many track limits, while the likes of Jak Crawford, Brad Benavides and Enzo Fittipaldi did not have a good time.
The second run saw Martins still set the pace early on with a 1m14.643s lap from Vesti and Pourchaire. There was an off moment for MP Motorsport’s Jehan Daruvala, while PHM Charouz’s Benavides was shown a black and white flag too for track limits.
The last few laps saw improvements but not much on the standings with Martins eventually taking feature F2 race pole in Austria from Vesti and Pourchaire. Campos’ Kush Maini was fourth from Doohan and DAMS’ Ayumu Iwasa, who set a late quick lap.
Fittipaldi was seventh after recovering from early blip like DAMS’ Arthur Leclerc in ninth behind Cordeel. The Top 10 was rounded by Daruvala, who has sprint F2 race pole. Just after the session ended, Iwasa had his time deleted from sixth.
It put Fittipaldi in sixth from Cordeel, Leclerc, Daruvala and Hitech GP’s Crawford who moved up a place to have sprint F2 race pole.
F3:
ART Grand Prix’s Grégoire Saucy secured his first Formula 3 pole position in Spielberg after a dramatic Qualifying session around the Red Bull Ring. PREMA Racing’s Paul Aron had ended the session fastest of all but dropped to P4 after losing his best time for exceeding track limits.
His demotion moved Saucy’s 1:20.457 up into to P1 and PREMA teammate Dino Beganovic onto the front row. The Swede was just 0.004s off Saucy’s pole time, while Championship leader Gabriel Bortoleto secured third place in his #5 Trident.
With patches of rain on the weather radars, everyone was out immediately at the green light. Caio Collet led the way as the rest jostled for track position, and the Van Amersfoort Racing driver set the first time to beat with a 1:21.078.
Franco Colapinto and Mari Boya went quickest consecutively for MP Motorsport before Aron secured the top spot for PREMA Racing on a 1:20.578. He shaved a few hundredths off that on his next effort, lowering the benchmark to a 1:20.518. Beganovic then edged just 0.003s ahead of the Estonian for P1 to cap off a frenetic opening 10 minutes.
Having been bumped down the order as others improved, Collet moved back up to P7 and was one of the only drivers to improve on their second run on their first set of tyres.
With 15 minutes gone, Beganovic headed up Aron, Gabriel Bortoleto, Josep María Martí and Gabriele Minì in the top five. After everyone returned to the pits to fit a fresh set of the soft Pirelli tyres, the track was busy once again with nine minutes remaining.
There were improvements throughout the field, but nobody could leap ahead of either PREMA driver prior to the final two minutes of the session. Colapinto moved up to third while Oliver Goethe went ahead of Bortoleto, fourth and fifth for Trident respectively.
On the final laps, the Championship leader improved to take provisional pole by 0.044s until Beganovic and then Aron usurped him again. The Mercedes junior managed to go fastest of all once more with a 1:20.283, while Saucy was one of the few late improvers ahead of the chequered flag.
There was one final twist though, with Aron losing his would-be pole lap for exceeding track limits. He wasn’t the only driver to lose their lap. Nikita Bedrin had been inside the top five for Jenzer Motorsport but dropped down to P22 after the session finished.
It meant that Collet ended up fifth ahead of Zak O’Sullivan, Colapinto, Goethe, Kaylen Frederick and Christian Mansell inside the top 10. Gabriele Minì and Josep María Martí will start Saturday’s Sprint Race on the front row, with the Campos Racing driver on reverse grid pole after ending Qualifying 12th.
#F3 #AustrianGP Results of a silly qualifying where there were too many cars (30) on track at the same time to create decent gaps and many drivers holding eachother up. And then came tracklimits. The top 12 will be reversed as the grid for tomorrows SprintRace. #MsportXtra pic.twitter.com/VYIQ0euSHL
— #MsportXtra © (@MsportXtra) June 30, 2023
More to come