Home Formula 3FIA F3 Championship Lawson promoted to FIA F3 pole after Monza qualifying penalties

Lawson promoted to FIA F3 pole after Monza qualifying penalties

by Craig Woollard

Photo: Red Bull Content Pool

Liam Lawson will start the first FIA Formula 3 Championship race at Monza from pole position, after nine drivers were penalised after qualifying due to driving unnecessarily slowly.

This was reminiscent of last year’s qualifying at the circuit, where there was also penalties issued out and on-track running was shortened due to the danger being caused by drivers slowing so as to catch a tow from rivals.

Lawson had qualified fourth, and was the cause of a red flag when we set out on track with a cooling device still attached to his car. It removed itself while he was on the move, at which point it became a dangerous piece of debris.

The three drivers who qualified ahead of Lawson – Théo Pourchaire, Lirim Zendeli and Alexander Smolyar – were all handed five-place grid drops as a result of slowing excessively at Curva Parabolica, as was David Beckmann, Sebastian Fernandez, Olli Caldwell and Pierre-Louis Chovet further down the order.

Smolyar was handed a second penalty for driving excessively slowly on the run to the first chicane, dropping him back a further three places, while Zendeli will be docked 10 spots in total after he impeded Lawson in the session.

Prema’s Oscar Piastri and Frederik Vesti earned three-place grid penalties after impeding HWA Racelab’s Jake Hughes.

While Lawson jumps from fourth to first, Jenzer Motorsport rookie Matteo Nannini moved up from seventh to the front row, with Hughes and the second Jenzer car of Calan Williams now filling row two.

Championship leader Logan Sargeant has climbed from 10th to fifth on the grid, alongside the penalised Pourchaire. Title contender Piastri is now down in 15th.

Pourchaire commented on the session prior to the penalties being awarded: “It was really difficult and as Trident and Hitech, ART was quite towards the front, so this helped a lot for sure. Then there is some investigation on me for impeding some cars.

“On the last lap for sure I tried my maximum to move out of the racing line and some drivers, a lot of drivers stayed on the racing line in Turn 3 and I did my maximum.

 

Race one grid
Pos Driver Team Time Gap
1 Liam Lawson Hitech GP 1m37.788s
2 Matteo Nannini Jenzer Motorsport 1m38.036s +0.248s
3 Jake Hughes HWA Racelab 1m38.051s +0.263s
4 Calan Williams Jenzer Motorsport 1m38.064s +0.276s
5 Logan Sargeant Prema 1m38.095s +0.307s
6 Theo Pourchaire ART Grand Prix 1m37.301s -0.487s
7 Igor Fraga Charouz Racing System 1m38.215s +0.427s
8 Alex Peroni Campos Racing 1m38.588s +0.449s
9 Frederik Vesti Prema 1m38.015s +0.227s
10 David Beckmann Trident 1m37.809s +0.021s
11 Alexander Smolyar ART Grand Prix 1m37.788s +0.000s
12 Lirim Zendeli Trident 1m37.752s -0.036s
13 Roman Stanek Charouz Racing System 1m38.531s +0.743s
14 Richard Verschoor MP Motorsport 1m38.583s +0.795s
15 Oscar Piastri Prema 1m38.198s +0.410s
16 Sebastian Fernandez ART Grand Prix 1m38.142s +0.354s
17 Enzo Fittipaldi HWA Racelab 1m38.684s +0.896s
18 Jack Doohan HWA Racelab 1m38.690s +0.902s
19 Mikhael Belov Charouz Racing System 1m38.723s +0.935s
20 Olli Caldwell Trident 1m38.343s +0.555s
21 Bent Viscaal MP Motorsport 1m38.800s +1.012s
22 Dennis Hauger Hitech GP 1m38.842s +1.054s
23 Federico Malvestiti Jenzer Motorsport 1m38.865s +1.077s
24 Clement Novalak Carlin 1m38.897s +1.109s
25 Sophia Floersch Campos Racing 1m39.022s +1.234s
26 Cameron Das Carlin 1m39.077s +1.289s
27 Alessio Deledda Campos Racing 1m39.448s +1.660s
28 Lukas Dunner MP Motorsport 1m39.479s +1.691s
29 David Schumacher Carlin 1m39.494s +1.706s
30 Pierre-Louis Chovet Hitech GP 1m39.173s +1.385s