Home Featured Vesti beats Hauger to top FIA F3 qualifying at Paul Ricard

Vesti beats Hauger to top FIA F3 qualifying at Paul Ricard

by Bethonie Waring

Photo: Formula Motorsport Limited

Mercedes junior Frederik Vesti topped the order in a disrupted qualifying session for the second round of the FIA Formula 3 season at Paul Ricard.

An incident early in the session for Arthur Leclerc brought out the red flags while most of the field were on their first flying laps.

While everyone except Leclerc was able to put in a flying lap, the disruption to running meant the track was even busier as everyone tried to find clear space for their run.

Prema’s championship leader Dennis Hauger set the pace when the first set of laps had been completed, with MP Motorsport duo Caio Collet and Victor Martins close behind.

The top three remained unchanged until the closing stages of the session when  ART Grand Prix’s Vesti jumped up the order, becoming the only driver to set a time sub-1m51s with a time of 1m50.882s.

Hauger found improvements on his second set of tyres but had to settle for second, 0.181 seconds behind Vesti.

Martins and Jack Doohan jumped up to third and fourth, knocking Collet down to fifth.

Cement Novalak and Alexander Smolyar took sixth and seventh ahead of late improver Ayuma Iwasa and Juan Manuel Correa.

In the battle for reversed-grid pole position, Lorenzo Colombo spend most of the session running in P12, but dropped down the order as others found improvements.

Calan Williams ultimately finished 12th to take pole position for race one. David Schumacher will line up alongside him with Logan Sargeant’s P10 overall placing him third on the grid.

Qualifying results

Pos Name Team Time Gap Laps
1 Frederik Vesti ART Grand Prix 1m50.882s 13
2 Dennis Hauger Prema 1m51.063s +0.181s 12
3 Victor Martins MP Motorsport 1m51.122s +0.240s 12
4 Jack Doohan Trident 1m51.165s +0.283s 12
5 Caio Collet MP Motorsport 1m51.187s +0.305s 12
6 Clement Novalak Trident 1m51.213s +0.331s 13
7 Alexander Smolyar ART Grand Prix 1m51.269s +0.387s 13
8 Ayumu Iwasa Hitech GP 1m51.484s +0.602s 12
9 Juan Manuel Correa ART Grand Prix 1m51.503s +0.621s 12
10 Logan Sargeant Charouz Racing System 1m51.525s +0.643s 13
11 David Schumacher Trident 1m51.550s +0.668s 11
12 Calan Williams Jenzer Motorsport 1m51.575s +0.693s 12
13 Matteo Nannini HWA Racelab 1m51.613s +0.731s 12
14 Olli Caldwell Prema 1m51.748s +0.766s 12
15 Tijmen van der Helm MP Motorsport 1m51.669s +0.787s 13
16 Jak Crawford Hitech GP 1m51.718s +0.836s 12
17 Roman Stanek Hitech GP 1m51.772s +0.890s 12
18 Lorenzo Colombo Campos Racing 1m51.809s +0.927s 14
19 Amaury Cordeel Campos Racing 1m51.929s +1.047s 14
20 Johnathan Hoggard Jenzer Motorsport 1m52.051s +1.169s 12
21 Enzo Fittipaldi Charouz Racing System 1m52.334s +1.452s 12
22 Kaylen Frederick Carlin 1m52.453s +1.571s 13
23 Jonny Edgar Carlin 1m52.453s +1.571s 13
24 Oliver Rasmussen HWA Racelab 1m52.475s +1.593s 12
25 Pierre-Louis Chovet Campos Racing 1m52.564s +1.682s 13
26 Reshad de Gerus Charouz Racing System 1m52.795s +1.913s 13
27 Filip Ugran Jenzer Motorsport 1m52.823s +1.941s 12
28 Rafael Villagomez HWA Racelab 1m52.946s +2.064s 12
29 Ido Cohen Carlin 1m53.023s +2.141s 13
30 Arthur Leclerc Prema 2m30.239s +39.357s 3