Mini tops messy rain-hit F3 practice in Monaco

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Gabriele Mini led a heavily disrupted Formula 3 practice session in Monaco as red flags and rain limited running ahead of Friday’s qualifying.

Last year’s Monaco polesitter and feature race winner Mini went fastest early on with a time of 1m27.400s, 0.091 seconds ahead of Leonardo Fornaroli.

That was before the first interruption less than 10 minutes into the 45-minute session when Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak went straight on into the barriers at Sainte Devote.

There was no chance to improve times at the restart before Callum Voisin had a similar incident at the first corner, triggering another red flag. His Rodin team-mate Joseph Loake also went straight on but was able to use the escape road to get his car spun around and continue.

The rain began to fall as the session resumed once more with 23 minutes remaining.

Some drivers did still manage to improve their times, with Dino Beganovic moving up to third and Sami Meguetounif jumping up to fourth before he lost control spectacularly on the approach to Ste Devote.

The Imola feature race winner slid across the inside of the corner and hit the barrier with his left-rear wheel, breaking his suspension.

That caused another red flag, with 13 minutes left on the clock when cars returned to the track on wet tyres.

While times were some way off the dry pace, the rest of the session did unfold without further interruption. Arvid Lindblad did run deep down the escape road at Mirabeau but managed to continue after a several-point-turn, while fellow Red Bull junior Tim Tramnitz went off at Ste Devote but could spin around and rejoin.

James Hedley made his F3 debut with Jenzer Motorsport after his last-minute call-up to replace Matias Zagazeta and finished up 17th.

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