Red flags fill second morning of FIA F3 testing at Imola

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Gabriele Mini was fastest for Prema on the second morning of FIA Formula 3 post-season testing at Imola, which was heavily disrupted by red flags.

Track limits was the big issue through the first third of the three-hour session, and the action at the top of the timesheet all occured within the first 32 minutes.

Jenzer Motorsport’s Charlie Wurz set the pace at first, then was beaten by Campos Racing’s Mari Boya an Hitech GP’s Alex Dunne six minutes in.

Prema’s Dino Beganovic was the first driver to lap in the 1m31, and at the 10-minute mark Dunne returned to the top with a 1m31.827s. Mini beat that by 0.119 seconds not long fter, then Beganovic lowered the pace by a further 0.237s.

There was no improvement on Beganovic’s benchmark until half an hour in, when Wurz set a 1m31.443s, Dunne set a 1m31.306s and then Mini posted a 1m30.679s.

In total seven drivers lapped sub-1m31s, with Boya, Beganovic and ART Grand Prix’s Nikola Tsolov completing a top four covered by 0.157s.

Gregoire Saucy was fifth for MP Motorsport, 0.247s off the pace and just 0.011s ahead of Campos’s Oliver Goethe. Trident’s Leonardo Fornaroli was seventh fastest.

The remaining two hours of the session were chaos. Red flags first waved when MP’s Kacper Sztuka stopped with a technical problem at turn 10. Two minutes after the restart he stopped with another technical problem at turn seven, then after a prolonged stoppage there was 10 minute of green flag action before red flags waved again very briefly and with all cars safely back in the pits.

Campos’s Sebastian Montoya and then Rodin Carlin’s Callum Voisin got stuck in the gravel with one hour-and-15 minutes left on the clock, prompting another red flag period, then the sessionw as only restarte for three minutes before Voisin’s team-mate Ugo Ugochukwu binned his car in the gravel at turn 19.

The next red flag period after that came with 29 minutes to go as Trident’s Sami Meguetounif stopped at turn 14 with a technical problem, and the session was finally ended four minutes before the clock hit zero as PHM Racing’s Tasanapol Inthraphuvaak ground to a halt at turn four with a technical issue.

Morning session results