Bortoleto beats Barnard to top Red Bull Ring F3 practice

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Formula 3 championship leader Gabriel Bortoleto set the pace in free practice at the Red Bull Ring, which was interrupted by an off for Sebastian Montoya.

Luke Browning was fastest one-third of a way through the 45-minute session before Bortoleto bettered his time a few minutes later.

The Trident driver remained at the head of the field until a flurry of flying laps with five minutes left on the clock. Gregoire Saucy and Franco Colapinto very briefly claimed top spot before Caio Collet took over.

Collet’s time on top was also fairly short-lived, with Bortoleto going half a second quicker when he crossed the line with a time of 1m19.410s.

That remained good enough to top the session, with Taylor Barnard slotting into second place for Jenzer Motorsport, 0.148s off.

Gabriele Mini improved late on to take third, having set two fastest sectors on his previous effort being baulked by Alex Garcia in the final sector.

Collet and Colapinto finished up fourth and fifth, with Browning improving his effort at the end to beat Paul Aron to sixth.

Barcelona feature race winner Pepe Marti finished the session eighth for Campos but then had his best time deleted, as did Campos team-mate Christian Mansell, who had been 11th. Dino Beganovic therefore took eighth ahead of Saucy and Oliver Goethe.

Montoya brought out red flags when he slid backwards into the gravel trap at turn 7 with just over a third of the session remaining. He couldn’t resume his session and ended up 25th, just ahead of series debutant McKenzy Cresswell – who completed more laps than anybody else (27) as he got familiar with his PHM Racing by Charouz car.

Practice result