Frederik Vesti qualified on pole position for the first time in his FIA Formula 3 career in a session that was interrupted twice with red-flag stoppages.
The first stoppage was due to last weekend’s pole-sitter, Sebastian Fernandez, going off into the gravel trap at Turn 7 – he was fastest at the time of the incident.
The rest of the top ten by the time the session resumed was Vesti in second, Alex Peroni, David Beckmann, Lirim Zendeli, Oscar Piastri, Liam Lawson, Logan Sargeant, David Schumacher and Theo Pourchaire.
Red flags came out for a second time when Igor Fraga stopped out on the start-finish straight with mechanical trouble. Logan Sargeant improved in his PREMA to go fastest after Vesti’s time that saw him in P1 for a moment was deleted for exceeding track limits, dropping him to fourth behind Piastri and Fernandez.
Sargeant’s fortunes took a turn for the worse though, as he experienced problems in the pits with his car refusing to fire up. The American would not improve his time and would ultimately end qualifying in third.
Vesti, however, pulled out a flyer in the final few minutes to salvage pole position and four championship points by over a tenth from David Beckmann in second. Piastri made it three PREMAs in the top four ahead of Pourchaire, Zendeli, Peroni, Olli Caldwell, Fernandez and Lawson rounding out the top ten.
The first race of the F3 weekend is scheduled to start on Saturday at 09:25 BST but could be affected due to forecast of heavy rain.
