Lance Stroll benefitted for a moment where the rain stopped to claim pole position for the first FIA F3 race at Pau. George Russell, despite his best time in group one, will start second, Cassidy takes third.
As it is usually the case at Pau, the qualifying session was splitted in two groups to avoid traffic problems on a narrow track. The first group consists of :Tveter, Lorandi, Camara, Eriksson, Newey, Günther, Cong Li, Mazepin, Russell, Aron and Barnicoat.
If the rain stopped for a couple of hours before qualifying session, it started falling hard again five minutes before Q1 started. Most drivers go out as soon as the green flag falls, Lorandi, after his crash in FP1, is able to rejoin the track and set the fastest time in the early session before Günther and Russell beat his time. Despite the rain easing off, Aron, Eriksson and Russell go off at T1 which allows Barnicoat to take the lead. With one minute to go, Russell claims a storming lap to take first spot of group 1, ahead of Barnicoat, Günther, Camara and Tveter.
Group two consists of Stroll, Cassidy, Piquet, Ilott, Jensen, Beckmann, Kari, Maini, Hubert, Zhou.
The rain stops just before group 2 gets underway, which gives the drivers a great advantage of a drying track compared to those of group 1. Niko Kari sets an early pace before Lance Stroll goes faster. With eight minutes to go, Stroll beats Russell’s time and took his pole time away, Cassidy the second and last to be the British driver’s time. Not a lot of changes are to be seen in this qualifying session.
Stroll will start on pole position ahead of Russell, Cassidy, Barnicoat, Hubert, Günther, Ilott, Camara, Kari and Tveter.