Photo: Joe Portlock / FIA F3 Championship
Marcus Armstrong took FIA Formula 3 pole position at the Red Bull Ring with a commanding performance, as Prema team-mate and series leader Robert Shwartzman’s session ended early when his car stopped.
Shwartzman sat third behind Prema team-mates Armstrong and Jehan Daruvala when he came to a halt on the run to Turn 4 with 18 minutes to go. The subsequent yellow flags effectively brought an end to the first part of the session.
Armstrong was poised to improve his time with four minutes to go when the red flags came out after a big crash for Logan Sargeant at the final corner, caused when the front of his car took off over the kerbs.
When the session restarted, Armstrong could record an improvement, taking pole with a 1m19.716s.
Juri Vips looked set for a place on the front row, the Hitech driver having leapt from 22nd to third just prior to the red flag, before taking second away from Daruvala after the restart.
However, Max Fewtrell snatched second at the chequered flag, climbing up from 14th place for ART.
His team-mate Christian Lundgaard beat Jake Hughes to fifth place late on. Like Hitech team-mate Vips, Leonardo Pulcini had work to do mid-session and got himself up to fourth, but ended up seventh.
Pedro Piquet was eighth with David Beckmann ninth, while Sebastian Fernandez qualified 10th, but will take a three-place grid penalty after he exited the pit-lane under a red light during practice.
Shwartzman ended up down in 12th behind Lirim Zendeli.