Home Featured Hadjar takes maiden pole in shortened F3 qualifying in Austria

Hadjar takes maiden pole in shortened F3 qualifying in Austria

by Alejandro Alonso Lopez

Isack Hadjar claimed his maiden FIA Formula 3 pole-position at the Red Bull Ring, improving in a final run affected by the track’s typical traffic jam and a red flag.

Championship leader Victor Martins topped the times for ART Grand Prix once every driver had completed his first qualifying attempt.

Several drivers improved their laptimes on their second lap on the first set of tyres, but no one could beat Martins’ benchmark of 1m19.980.

Prema’s Ollie Bearman was the closest one to the Frenchman’s fastest time, staying just 0.062 seconds off of it.

Charouz Racing System’s Zdenek Chovanec was slow out of turn nine and stopped right at the bollard that marks the pit-lane entry. Yellow flags were out, however, Chovanec got going again. The stewards noted the incident for investigation for erratic driving.

With 10 minutes on the clock, all the cars left the pit-lane for a second run on new tyres.

Leaving his pit-lane position, Bearman made contact with Carlin’s Zak o’Sullivan, who was already on the fast-lane. Both drivers kept going with the unsafe release set to be investigated by the stewards after the session.

Traffic issues appeared as the session approached its end, with drivers queuing and fighting for a spot in the last two corners.

Despite the chaos, Hitech GP driver Hadjar beat Martins’ time first by a tiny margin and then improved again to take pole by 0.221 seconds.

Chovanec going off at turn one with his front-right tyre appearing deflated brought the red flag out with two minutes to go and the session would’t restart.

Bearman and his teammate Arthur Leclerc concluded the session in third and fourth place respectively, with Hitech’s Kaylen Frederik rounding off the top five.

MP Motorsport’s Caio Collet will start Saturday’s sprint race from reversed-grid pole-position with ART GP’s Juan Manuel Correa alongside him, after qualifying in 12th and 11th place respectively.

Several drivers had laps cancelled for exceeding track limits at turn 10 during the session.

Qualifying results

Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Isack Hadjar Hitech GP 1m19.759s 22
2 Victor Martins ART Grand Prix 1m19.980s +0.221s 21
3 Ollie Bearman Prema 1m20.058s +0.299s 16
4 Arthur Leclerc Prema 1m20.069s +0.310s 20
5 Kaylen Frederick Hitech GP 1m20.134s +0.375s 21
6 Roman Stanek Trident 1m20.178s +0.419s 20
7 Jonny Edgar Trident 1m20.199s +0.440s 22
8 Zane Maloney Trident 1m20.290s +0.531s 24
9 Franco Colapinto Van Amersfoort Racing 1m20.297s +0.538s 24
10 Jak Crawford Prema 1m20.351s +0.592s 19
11 Juan Manuel Correa ART Grand Prix 1m20.380s +0.621s 20
12 Caio Collet MP Motorsport 1m20.421s +0.662s 24
13 Ido Cohen Jenzer Motorsport 1m20.431s +0.672s 20
14 William Alatalo Jenzer Motorsport 1m20.433s +0.674s 22
15 Zak O’Sullivan Carlin 1m20.510s +0.751s 22
16 Alexander Smolyar MP Motorsport 1m20.516s +0.757s 23
17 Enzo Trulli Carlin 1m20.568s +0.809s 22
18 Gregoire Saucy ART Grand Prix 1m20.591 +0.832s 21
19 David Vidales Campos Racing 1m20.607s +0.848s 21
20 Pepe Marti Campos Racing 1m20.668s +0.909s 24
21 Reece Ushijima Van Amersfoort Racing 1m20.747s +0.988s 25
22 Nazim Azman Hitech GP 1m20.782s +1.023s 25
23 Hunter Yeany Campos Racing 1m20.859s +1.100s 23
24 Francesco Pizzi Charouz Racing System 1m20.868s +1.109s 22
25 Rafael Villagomez Van Amersfoort Racing 1m20.927s +1.168s 23
26 Kush Maini MP Motorsport 1m21.098s +1.339s 22
27 Brad Benavides Carlin 1m21.304s +1.545s 24
28 Federico Malvestiti Jenzer Motorsport 1m21.370s +1.611s 23
29 Laszlo Toth Charouz Racing System 1m22.566s +2.807s 19
30 Zdenek Chovanec Charouz Racing System 1m27.895s +8.136s 17