Colapinto storms to pole on his and VAR’s FIA F3 debut in Bahrain

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Franco Colapino stormed to pole position on his and Van Amersfoort Racing’s FIA Formula 3 Championship debut in qualifying for the opening round of the 2022 season in Bahrain.

Colapinto spent most of the session at the back of the order without a representative lap time on the board having had laps deleted. With less than 10 minutes on the clock he shot up the order to P1 with his first competitive time. A 1m46.249s time was enough to put him comfortably at the top of the order ahead of Roman Stanek.

Stanek had spent most of the session towards the top of the order, though wasn’t quite able to put himself at the top of the times at any point. His quickest time put him just 0.065 seconds behind Colapinto.

Kush Maini had been at the tail end as the field started their flying laps, with his position even more uncertain after he missed the weighbridge on the way into the pits about 20 minutes into the session.

However, as one of the final drivers in the train of cars setting their final flying laps, he jumped up to third as he took the chequered flag, just a further 0.008s behind Stanek, but will likely face an investigation for missing the weighbridge.

Gregory Saucy went fastest early on and ended the session fourth ahead of his ART Grand Prix team-mates Victor Martins and a flying Juan Manuel Correa. Zane Maloney just pipped Alexander Smolyar to stay seventh.

After an uncertain pre-season, Smolyar was on the pace throughout the afternoon. He went fastest on a clear track in the middle of the session, three tenths of a second quicker than the next fastest driver, and remained there until the final set of laps.

After slipping back down the order, he looked set to improve on his final lap when he came across Ayrton Simmons in the last corner. The disrupted lap meant he didn’t improve and he ended the session eighth ahead of Isack Hadjar and David Vidales.

Zak O’Sullivan placed 12th overall, putting himself on pole for the reversed-grid sprint race ahead of Olli Bearman. F3 debutant Bearman was the fastest of the Prema drivers in 11th, with Arthur Leclerc 14th and Jak Crawford 21st after his mechanics worked frantically on his car prior to the final runs.

Qualifying results