Marti takes pole for his and Campos’s home F3 round at Barcelona

Photo: Campos Racing

Pepe Marti took his maiden FIA Formula 3 pole on home soil at Barcelona to kick off Campos Racing’s 25th anniversary celebrations. 

Marti jumped to the top of the times midway through qualifying, moving to the front by less than a tenth of a second. 

He then improved to stretch his advantage, with the Campos driver managing to set a 1m27.587s laptime around the new chicane-free Barcelona circuit, 0.250 seconds quicker than Jenzer Motorsport’s practice pacesetter Taylor Barnard in second place. 

Ahead of qualifying, there was potential for wet weather to disrupt running. All the field headed out straight away to set a banker lap before the rain could come. However, the session was completed before the first drops of rain reached the track. 

Franco Colapinto topped the times after the first laps but dropped down the order as others found improvements. He jumped up the order again to qualify third, ahead of Dino Beganovic and Paul Aron. 

Championship leader Gabriele Bortoleto was fifth quickest, while early title rival Gabriele Mini could do no better than 18th place after his fastest lap was deleted due to a track limits violation.

Gregoire Saucy, who is third in the championship, will start the feature race from 10th, just behind Leonardo Fornaroli who was second after the first set of laps were completed. 

Zak O’Sullivan will start on pole for Saturday’s reversed-grid sprint race, with Luke Browning alongside him on the front row. 

Qualifying results