Red Bull junior Tsolov claims FIA F3 pole in Monaco

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Nikola Tsolov claimed pole position for FIA Formula 3’s feature race in Monaco by topping the first qualifying group of two.

The Campos Racing driver beat team-mate Mari Boya by 0.127 seconds in their group, setting a 1m24.882s that was not close to being matched by drivers in the second group.

A late red flag period disrupted group B’s running after Prema’s Brando Badoer crashed, and when qualifying restarted there was time for everyone else to get one more flying lap. Roman Bilinksi improved to go 0.027s faster than Rodin Motorsport team-mate Callum Voisin at the top, but was 0.45s off Tsolov’s pace.

Tsolov had set the pace after the first runs in group one, just ahead of Prema’s Noel Leon and AIX Racing’s Brad Benavides.

On the second runs, Leon and Tsolov were both lowering the provisional pole position time, only for Boya to better both of them late in the 16-minute session.

The fight to be fastest went to the very end, and both Boya and Tsolov improved. The latter came out on top, with Leon third fastest ahead of Trident’s Charlie Wurz and ART Grand Prix’s Tuukka Taponen.

In group B, MP Motorsport’s Tim Tramnitz set the pace early on ahead of Campos’s Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak. ART GP’s Laurens van Hoepen briefly held first place in the group before Voisin jumped to the top.

Before anybody else could beat Voisin, Badoer had his crash which damaged the front of his car.

Bilinski was second, but after the restart surpassed his team-mate by improving to 1m25.332s to provisionally get a front row spot for Sunday’s race.

Tramnitz set a new personal best to end qualifying third in group B, ahead of Trident’s points leader Rafael Camara and van Hoepen.

MP’s Alessandro Giusti was sixth quickest, putting him on reversed-grid pole for the sprint race on Saturday. Hitech GP’s Martinius Stenshorne will start alongside him.

Qualifying results