Fornaroli takes pole for F3 decider in chaotic Monza qualifying

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Points leader Leonardo Fornaroli took pole for the FIA Formula 3 season finale during a messy qualifying at Monza.

The Trident driver set the fastest time during a qualifying that was split into two groups, with MP Motorsport’s Alex Dunne set to start alongside him for Sunday’s feature race.

The format featured two 13-minute sessions, with the even-numbered cars running in Group A and the odd-numbered cars in Group B. Fornaroli was joined by his closest two championship rivals Gabriel Mini (Prema) and Luke Browning (Hitech GP) in Group A, and it wasn’t until the final 10 minutes that any cars headed onto track.

The red flags were brought out before anybody could start a timed lap, however. With nobody wanting to lead the pack on their out-laps, several drivers almost slowed to a halt on the exit of the first Lesmo bend.

This caught out MP’s Kacper Sztuka and ART Grand Prix’s Laurens Van Hoepen at the tail of the train, the pair colliding before limping back to the pits with damage. Both would take no further part in the session.

The green flags were waved with five minutes left on the clock. Browning briefly moved to the top on his first timed lap with a 1m39.408s. Campos Racing’s Mari Boya then lapped almost 0.4 seconds quicker and AIX Racing’s Joshua Dufek lowered the pace by a further 0.2s.

Fornaroli leapt to the top on his second effort, his 1m38.287s lap proving good enough to end the session fastest. Mini snatched second, while Fornaroli’s team-mate Santiago Ramos climbed to third. Browning bailed out of his second flying lap and, despite making a slight improvement on his final effort, ended up seventh – leaving him starting outside of the top 12 for both of the weekend’s races.

There was no track action until the second half of Group B’s session, and it was title outsider Christian Mansell who led the pack as drivers prepared for their first timed laps with little more than three minutes remaining.

A spin for Jenzer Motorsport’s Matias Zagazeta briefly brought out the yellow flags and resulted in several drivers, including Mansell, bailing out of their flying laps. Martinius Stenshorne was one who didn’t, and the Hitech driver posted a 1m39.273s benchmark which was soon beaten by Trident’s Sami Meguetounif.

Dunne then moved into first with a session-topping 1m38.818s, but it was not enough to deny session-one leader Fornaroli. Sebastian Montoya took third while Mansell set the fourth quickest time despite catching Van Amersfoort Racing’s Sophia Floersch on his second timed lap, leaving the Australian starting eighth for the feature race. 

Prema’s title-contending duo Dino Beganovic and Arvid Lindblad could only manage fifth and and ninth respectively in Group B, also leaving them work to do in Sunday’s contest.

Beganovic is set to start third in Saturday’s reversed-grid sprint race, with MP’s Tim Tramnitz provisionally taking pole ahead of AIX’s Tasanopol Inthraphuvasak.

Qualifying results