Qualifying report
FIA F3 Monza
Monza F3: Pourchaire takes pole in farcical qualifying
Theo Pourchaire earned his maiden FIA Formula 3 pole position in a farcical qualifying session, which has left three teams under investigation for impeding.
Josh Suttill
Published: Sep 4, 2020, 1:11 PM
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The session mirrored last year’s FIA F3 qualifying session, which resulted in penalties for 17 drivers after the majority of the 30-car field jostled for track position and ended up ruining each others' flying laps.
In similarly bizarre scenes this year, the drivers ran in a safety car restart-like formation on the entry to the Parabolica prior to the final qualifying runs to try and get in a position to receive a tow from the cars in front.
It was 17-year-old Pourchaire who emerged from the chaos to post a 1m37.301s and take his first FIA F3 pole and the four bonus points that come with it.
He was over four-tenths quicker than second-placed Lirim Zendeli, however Pourchaire’s ART Grand Prix team – along with Zendeli’s Trident and points-leading Prema – face a post-session investigation for impeding other drivers.
Pourchaire’s teammate Alexander Smolyar completed the top three in the provisional qualifying results, which are expected to drastically change.
Red Bull junior Liam Lawson’s ever-fading title hopes were dealt another critical blow when he left the pits with a cooling fan still attached to his Hitech GP-run machine.
He posted the fourth-fastest time, but he faces an investigation for the incident that brought out the red flag with just under 10 minutes of the session remaining.
Trident’s David Beckmann led the session after the first qualifying runs but dropped to fifth place, with Prema’s Frederik Vesti falling from second to sixth place.
Vesti’s title-contending teammates Logan Sargeant and Oscar Piastri found themselves in the middle of the frenetic scenes and could only manage to post the 10th and 12th fastest time respectively.
Matteo Nannini – nephew of 1989 Japanese Grand Prix winner Alessandro – earned his best qualifying result of the season in seventh place ahead of HWA’s Jake Hughes and his teammate Calan Williams.
A frustrated Hughes was one of a number of drivers to set a fastest sector time before encountering the Ascari chicane, which was littered with almost a dozen slow-moving cars.
Practice pacesetter David Schumacher set the 30th and slowest time for Carlin, over 2.1s adrift of Pourchaire’s benchmark.
Monza F3 - Qualifying results:
Cla # Driver Team Time Gap 1 7 Theo Pourchaire
ART Grand Prix 1'37.301 2 10
Lirim Zendeli
Trident 1'37.752 0.451 3 8
Alexander Smolyar
ART Grand Prix 1'37.788 0.487 4 5
Liam Lawson
HitechGP 1'37.788 0.487 5 11
David Beckmann
Trident 1'37.809 0.508 6 2
Frederik Vesti
Prema Powerteam 1'38.015 0.714 7 22
Matteo Nannini
Jenzer Motorsport 1'38.036 0.735 8 15
Jake Hughes
HWA AG 1'38.051 0.750 9 20
Calan Williams
Jenzer Motorsport 1'38.064 0.763 10 3
Logan Sargeant
Prema Powerteam 1'38.095 0.794 11 9
Sebastian Fernandez
ART Grand Prix 1'38.142 0.841 12 1
Oscar Piastri
Prema Powerteam 1'38.198 0.897 13 24
Igor Fraga
Charouz Racing System 1'38.215 0.914 14 29
Alexander Peroni
Campos Racing 1'38.237 0.936 15 12
Olli Caldwell
Trident 1'38.343 1.042 16 23
Roman Staněk
Charouz Racing System 1'38.531 1.230 17 17
Richard Verschoor
MP Motorsport 1'38.583 1.282 18 14
Enzo Fittipaldi
HWA AG 1'38.684 1.383 19 16
Jack Doohan
HWA AG 1'38.690 1.389 20 25 Michael Belov
Charouz Racing System 1'38.723 1.422 21 18
Bent Viscaal
MP Motorsport 1'38.800 1.499 22 6
Dennis Hauger
HitechGP 1'38.842 1.541 23 21
Federico Malvestiti
Jenzer Motorsport 1'38.865 1.564 24 26
Clement Novalak
Carlin 1'38.897 1.596 25 31
Sophia Flörsch
Campos Racing 1'39.022 1.721 26 28
Cameron Das
Carlin 1'39.077 1.776 27 4 Pierre-Louis Chovet
HitechGP 1'39.173 1.872 28 30
Alessio Deledda
Campos Racing 1'39.448 2.147 29 19
Lukas Dunner
MP Motorsport 1'39.479 2.178 30 27
David Schumacher
Carlin 1'39.494 2.193 View full results
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