Mini leads Melbourne F3 practice marred by shocking late incident

Photo: Prema

Gabriele Mini confidently set the pace in FIA Formula 3 practice in Melbourne, which ended with a shocking incident involving Nikola Tsolov and Alex Dunne.

Dino Beganovic set the early pace, three tenths of a second ahead of Prema team-mate Mini, who turned the tables on their next efforts to move exactly 0.300 seconds clear.

Arvid Lindblad, on his first time on the Albert Park circuit, made it a Prema 1-2-3 and could have been quicker had Cian Shields not spun in front of him at the final corner. The Hitech driver dropped a wheel onto the grass on entry and touched the barriers with his rear wing, triggering a red flag.

The session resumed with 23 minutes left on the clock and Dunne briefly interrupted the Prema dominance at the top of the times before Mini went fastest once more by 0.7s over Beganovic.

A couple of laps later, Beganovic got within 0.082s of Mini’s time, only for Mini to re-establish his seven-tenths margin.

Beganovic made a small improvement with 10 minutes left on the clock, enough to stay ahead of championship leader Luke Browning – who leapt from 30th to third after a quiet start to the session.

Leonardo Fornaroli made it an Italian one-two with six minutes to go, 0.345s away from Mini, who put in another fast effort just a tenth off his best.

However, the main talking point after the session will be what looked to be a moment of madness from Tsolov with three minutes remaining.

The Alpine junior was pushing hard exiting the fast turns 11 and 12 chicane when he encountered a slower Dunne who – seemingly unaware of the car behind – then began to weave to warm his tyres.

While Tsolov was able to slow to avoid running into the back of Dunne, he then pulled alongside and appeared to steer right towards the MP Motorsport car – sending it crashing into the concrete barrier lining the track. A red flag brought an early end to the session, with Dunne emerging seemingly unharmed from his damaged car and stewards set to investigate the incident.

Practice results