Fornaroli wins duel with Mini for F3 pole in Melbourne

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Trident’s Leonardo Fornaroli topped FIA Formula 3 qualifying in Melbourne to start Sunday’s feature race from pole position.

The Italian edged countryman Gabriele Mini by a narrow margin of 0.019 seconds. Prema’s Dino Beganovic rounded off the top three, 0.3 seconds off pole.

Fornaroli was quick from the off, setting the pace by 0.424s over Prema’s Mini on his the first flying lap. Mini improved on his next lap lap to sit 0.02s behind.

Laptimes improved, but only Hitech GP’s Luke Browning was able to get within half a second of the top two as the first runs came to an end.

Drivers went back on track for a second run on a new set of medium compound tyres with 10 minutes remaining on the clock.

Trident’s Sami Meguetounif brought red flags out with four-and-a-half minutes to go as he drove wide at the exit of the last corner and crashed, causing huge damage to his car.

The session resumed with Mini’s 1m33.505s — set just before qualifying was halted — being the time to beat. There was time for one more flying lap and Fornaroli regained top spot by going 0.8s faster than his previous best effort. Mini also improved, but came just short of reclaiming first place.

PHM Racing’s Nikita Bedrin qualified fourth behind Ferrari junior Beganovic, and Williams junior Browning was fifth.

ART Grand Prix’s Nikola Tsolov was sixth fastest, and will serve a three-place grid penalty in the reversed-grid sprint race for causing a collision with MP Motorsport’s Alex Dunne in free practice.

Campos Racing’s Mari Boya had his last lap deleted almost immediately, demoting him from sixth to 12th place. That would have put the Spaniard on sprint race pole, but some time after qualifying he had his best lap reinstated, which demoted ART GP’s Laurens van Hoepen to 12th on the timesheet and therefore on reversed-grid pole.

Qualifying results