Marciello and Rosenqvist dominate Norisring qualifying

Photo: FIA F3 European Championship

Championship rivals Raffaele Marciello and Felix Rosenqvist ran the show in qualifying for the Norisring round of European F3, with the Swedish Mucke driver topping the first qualifying session and the Italian reigning supreme in qualifying two.

Session one saw a very close fight for first, with Rosenqvist, Fortec’s Felix Serralles and the Prema drivers all competing for the top position. Eventually, Rosenqvist came out on top, beating out Marciello by 0.001s, while Serralles was another 0.001s down. Alex Lynn was very close as well, taking fourth despite being less than a hundredth of a second slower than the race winner.

Series returnee Alexander Sims posted the fifth time for the T-Sport squad, with Lucas Auer taking sixth. Tom Blomqvist was seventh, while his rookie teammate Nick Cassidy took ninth, with Harry Tincknell slotting in in-between. Pipo Derani rounded out the top ten.

On second-best times from Q1, which determine the grid of the second race, Marciello prevailed over Lynn, Rosenqvist and Sims, with Serralles rounding out the top five. Tincknell will start from sixth, while Auer will line up in seventh, leading Blomqvist, Derani and Cassidy into the battle.

For qualifying session two, Prema’s top man Marciello was untouchable, constantly upping his prior benchmarks until the checkered flag. Rosenqvist minimized the damage, taking second, with Lynn and Blomqvist lining up on the second row.

Auer will lead T-Sport’s Sims on row three, with an all-Carlin row four of Tincknell and Daniil Kvyat. Fortec duo Derani and Serralles will round out the top ten.

Starting order