Red Bull junior and Motopark’s Dan Ticktum took pole for 2018 Macau GP qualifying race ahead of Ferrari junior and Carlin’s Callum Ilott and Renault junior Sacha Fenestraz.
The Qualifying 2 on Friday started well with drivers able to put quick times in the 35 minutes session but as usual, the circuit caught out multiple drivers to bring out the first red flag when Team TOM’s Sho Tsuboi crashed.
The Japanese hit the wall just after the collision between Van Amersfoort Racing’s Kevyan Andres and Carlin’s Yoshiaki Katayama. The session re-started with the lead changing hands multiple times until it went to Motopark’s Joel Eriksson.
Ilott then went quickest but the British driver was toppled by fellow countryman Ticktum who improved further to set a 2m09.910s – the only driver in the 2m09s – to stay on top and take pole for Saturday’s qualifying race.
As a result, Ilott (2m10.353s) had to settle for second with Fenestraz (2m10.580s) popping in third after none of the drivers could improve in the final sector due to a crash between Eriksson and Threebond’s Ukyo Sasahara in the final corner.
Eriksson (2m10.991s) was still fourth from Prema’s Guanyu Zhou (2m11.130s) who improved late in the session with HitechGP’s Jake Hughes (2m11.155s) in sixth ahead of Motopark’s Marino Sato (2m11262s).
The Japanese driver did well to be inside the Top 10. Prema’s Marcus Armstrong (2m11.329s) finished eighth despite having crashed out midway in the session with teammate Mick Schumacher (2m11.382s) only ninth.
Ralf Aron (2m11.446s) then rounded out the Top 10 with Prema teammate Robert Shwartzman just outside in 11th from Motopark’s Juri Vips. It wasn’t the smoothest session again for many of the top runners in European F3.
Carlin’s Ferdinand Habsburg was 13th with Jehan Daruvala only 16th from HitechGP pair of Alex Palou and Enaam Ahmed in 17th and 18th respectively – the latter having another crash to bow out of the session early.
Position 11-28: Shwartzman, Vips, Habsburg, Frederik Vesti, Yuhi Sekiguchi, Daruvala, Palou, Ahmed, Ritomo Miyata, Charles Leong, Sena Sakaguchi, Tsuboi, Sasahara, Sophia Floersch, Andres, Toshiki Oyu, Katayama, Dragon.