Zandvoort F3: Hauger snatches pole away from Schumacher

The championship leader pipped the Trident driver to the top spot by just over one-tenth, denying the German his first pole position in the series.

It came after the Prema Racing driver, who is 25 points ahead in the drivers standings, had a difficult weekend in Spa last weekend qualifying just 14th.

Victor Martins will line up third for Sunday’s feature race for MP Motorsport at the team’s home race, while Trident’s Jack Doohan, who is second in the standings, starts fourth.

Trident teammate Clement Novalak finished in fifth, just 0.3s behind Hauger, with Caio Collet in sixth.

After a 10-minute delay to the start of the session, Alexander Smolyar was first to set a quick lap for ART Grand Prix, with Doohan taking an early advantage with a 1m25.630s.

Amaury Cordeel, Frederik Vesti, Victor Martins and Rafael Villagomez also set times in the 1m25s, with Hauger knocking Doohan from the top of the timesheet with a 1m25.167s.

With ten minutes down, Schumacher put himself up into second with Hitech’s Ayuma Iwasa making it into third, just two tenths behind leader Hauger.

Jak Crawford took a long trip off the road at Turn 9, running across the grass before managing to rejoin the track. Minutes later, he redeemed himself by moving up to third place.

Rafael Villagomez will start Races 1 and 3 from the pitlane after he failed to stop for the weighbridge.

The HWA Racelab driver was placed under investigation for the incident, which took place during qualifying, and later received the penalty, demoting him from 13th - his best Qualifying result to date.

He had been ordered to visit the weighbridge by the Technical Delegate but instead returned to the pits, where his team began work on the car.

With 12 minutes to go, Schumacher took the top spot, with a 1m24.715 – almost half a second quicker than Hauger, who quickly set another fast lap with a 1m24.869s.

The session was red-flagged with just over four minutes to go after Hunter Yeany spun at Turn 2 and came to a stop on track at Turn 3 in his Charouz car.

He managed to get the car restarted but interrupted the final flurry of fast laps, forcing drivers to return to the pits.

With only four minutes remaining on the clock when the session resumed a flurry of drivers improved on their previous times, including Doohan and Novalak, before Hauger took the top spot in the final 30 seconds.

Cordeel will start on pole for Saturday morning’s reverse-grid sprint race, with Logan Sargeant in second and Arthur Leclerc in third. Iwasa will line up fourth, with Alexander Smolyar in fifth and Crawford in sixth.

FIA F3 Zandvoort - qualifying results:

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Dennis Hauger	Prema Powerteam	1'24.580
2	David Schumacher	Trident	1'24.715	0.135
3	Victor Martins	MP Motorsport	1'24.885	0.305
4	Jack Doohan	Trident	1'24.939	0.359
5	Clement Novalak	Trident	1'24.961	0.381
6	Caio Collet	MP Motorsport	1'25.031	0.451
7	Jak Crawford	HitechGP	1'25.274	0.694
8	Alexander Smolyar	ART Grand Prix	1'25.345	0.765
9	Ayumu Iwasa	HitechGP	1'25.403	0.823
10	Arthur Leclerc	Prema Powerteam	1'25.422	0.842
11	Logan Sargeant	Charouz Racing System	1'25.556	0.976
12	Amaury Cordeel	Campos Racing	1'25.567	0.987
13	Rafael Villagómez	HWA AG	1'25.574	0.994
14	Frederik Vesti	ART Grand Prix	1'25.612	1.032
15	Lorenzo Colombo	Campos Racing	1'25.612	1.032
16	Olli Caldwell	Prema Powerteam	1'25.752	1.172
17	Ido Cohen	Carlin	1'25.752	1.172
18	Oliver Rasmussen	HWA AG	1'25.786	1.206
19	Jonny Edgar	Carlin	1'25.799	1.219
20	Roman Staněk	HitechGP	1'25.886	1.306
21	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport	1'25.892	1.312
22	Filip Ugran	Jenzer Motorsport	1'26.047	1.467
23	Johnathan Hoggard	Jenzer Motorsport	1'26.077	1.497
24	Matteo Nannini	HWA AG	1'26.157	1.577
25	Tijmen van	MP Motorsport	1'26.261	1.681
26	Kaylen Frederick	Carlin	1'26.292	1.712
27	Juan Manuel Correa	ART Grand Prix	1'26.409	1.829
28	László Tóth	Campos Racing	1'26.638	2.058
29	Hunter Yeany	Charouz Racing System	1'27.507	2.927
30	Zdenek Chovanec	Charouz Racing System	1'27.726	3.146
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