Motopark’s Juri Vips and Prema’s Marcus Armstrong shared the FIA European Formula 3 Championship’s poles in Race 2 and Race 3 at Misano.
The Qualifying 2 session was delayed due to heavy rain right at the time when it was to start originally. Thunder and lightning prevailed as the organisers decided to wait for the rain to slow down before letting the cars on track under lights.
After few minutes of wait, the cars were finally released. The initial time was set by Vips with Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala then beating it to go to the top. But Vips fought back again as did Armstrong then.
The pole time then traded between Vips and Armstrong for a couple of times as the Estonian eventually took it with a 1m46.004s to the Kiwi’s 1m46.069s after a late flyer on his final lap of the session.
Race 1 winner Mick Schumacher was third from teammate Ralf Aron with Carlin’s Ferdinand Habsburg in fifth ahead of HitechGP’s Alex Palou and Daruvala. The Top 7 pretty much fought among themselves for the top positions.
The Top 10 was then completed by Prema’s Guanyu Zhou, Motopark’s Dan Ticktum and HitechGP’s Ben Hingeley. The championship leader Ticktum struggled all-through the session as he could only reach a high of seventh at one point.
Position 11-22: Enaam Ahmed, Sebastian Fernandez, Jonathan Aberdein, Sacha Fenestraz, Robert Shwartzman, Marino Sato, Fabio Scherer, Artem Petrov, Sophia Floersch, Nikita Troitskiy, Keyvan Andres and Ameya Vaidyanathan.
Qualifying 3:
Taking the second-best time from the session, Armstrong’s 1m46.214s was quickest of the lot taking pole for Race 3 of the weekend with Aron in second after his 1m46.540s and Vips (1m47.291s) in third.
Zhou was fourth with Habsburg in fifth as Ahmed was a surprise sixth considering he was only 11th for Race 2. The Top 10 was then completed by Ticktum, Schumacher, Daruvala and Palou.
Position 11-22: Fernandez, Fenestraz, Aberdein, Hingeley, Sato, Shwartzman, Petrov, Scherer, Floersch, Andres, Troitskiy and Vaidyanathan.
