Photo: BRDC British F3
Ayrton Simmons took his first BRDC British Formula 3 poles since the 2019 season opepner for the championship’s visit to Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium.
The Chris Dittmann Racing set two laps that were good enough for pole, ensuring that he would start from first in both races one and three as a result of having the best second-fastest time.
Double R Racing’s Neil Verhagen challenged Simmons during the session, and ended up only a tenth of a second off when filling the front row of the grid. He wasn’t as consistently fast as Douglas Motorsport’s Ulysse De Pauw, who used his local knowledge to qualify fifth for race one and second for race three.
Lucas Petersson had his best qualifying result of the season in third, edging Carlin team-mate Kaylen Frederick by 0.002 seconds on the second row of the race one grid. The third Carlin car of championship leader Clement Novalak could manage no better than sixth and eighth.
Fortec Motorsports’ Manuel Maldonado converted his free practice pace into seventh places, with Double R’s Hampus Ericsson doing similarly well in ninth and sixth. Hillspeed’s Sasakorn Chaimongkol was faster than both during the three practice sessions, but come qualifying failed to make the top 10.
Novalak’s chief title rival Johnathan Hoggard (Fortec) will start races one and thee from 10th and ninth, the latter result only place behind.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Ayrton Simmons Chris Dittmann Racing 2m18.353s
2 Neil Verhagen Double R Racing +0.104s
3 Lucas Petersson Carlin +0.133s
4 Kaylen Frederick Carlin +0.135s
5 Ulysse De Pauw Douglas Motorsport +0.301s
6 Clement Novalak Carlin +0.413s
7 Manuel Maldonado Fortec Motorsports +0.414s
8 Kiern Jewiss Douglas Motorsport +0.494s
9 Hampus Ericsson Double R Racing +0.512s
10 Johnathan Hoggard Fortec Motorsports +0.673s
Race 3 grid
1 Simmons 2m18.432s
2 De Pauw +0.235s
3 Verhagen +0.240s
4 Petersson +0.293s
5 Frederick +0.294s
6 Ericsson +0.474s
7 Maldonado +0.498s
8 Novalak +0.560s
9 Hoggard +0.624s
10 Jewiss +0.679s