Paul Ricard F3: Gunther completes Prema hat-trick with double pole

The German led through the dying stages of the session, ending up ahead of George Russell by just 0.017s, the Briton joining him on the front row in both races.

Fellow Prema driver Nick Cassidy will start just behind Gunther in third, the Kiwi driver beating Mikkel Jensen and reigning Italian F4 champion Ralf Aron, another Prema driver.

Motopark's Joel Eriksson became the only car not powered by Mercedes in the top 10 in sixth, with Callum Ilott, Ben Barnicoat and Lance Stroll all less then a tenth behind the Swede.

Stroll, pacesetter of the earlier session, had to settle for ninth despite lapping only 0.370s off the benchmark time set by Prema teammate Gunther.

Formula Renault 2.0 graduate Anthoine Hubert completed the top 10.

Behind an unchanged top three, the final race's grid will see Ilott starting fourth ahead of Jensen, Aron, Barnicoat and Stroll.

UPDATE: George Russell has been excluded from the second qualifying session as he did not have the required amount of fuel remaining in the car after the session. As such, he'll start both Races 2 and 3 at the back.

Qualifying results:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Maximilian Gunther	Prema Powerteam	1:20.881
2	Nick Cassidy	Prema Powerteam	1:20.983	0.102
3	Mikkel Jensen	kfzteile24 Mucke Motorsport	1:21.035	0.154
4	Ralf Aron	Prema Powerteam	1:21.164	0.283
5	Joel Eriksson	Motopark	1:21.167	0.286
6	Callum Ilott	Van Amersfoort Racing	1:21.177	0.296
7	Ben Barnicoat	HitechGP	1:21.207	0.326
8	Lance Stroll	Prema Powerteam	1:21.251	0.370
9	Anthoine Hubert	Van Amersfoort Racing	1:21.436	0.555
10	Harrison Newey	Van Amersfoort Racing	1:21.603	0.722
11	Sergio Sette Camara	Motopark	1:21.623	0.742
12	Nikita Mazepin	HitechGP	1:21.623	0.742
13	Guan Yu Zhou	Motopark	1:21.816	0.935
14	Alessio Lorandi	Carlin	1:21.843	0.962
15	Niko Kari	Motopark	1:21.876	0.995
16	Raoul Hyman	Carlin	1:21.915	1.034
17	Ryan Tveter	Carlin	1:22.204	1.323
18	Arjun Maini	ThreeBond with T-Sport	1:22.453	1.572
19	Pedro Piquet	Van Amersfoort Racing	1:22.643	1.762
20	Zhi Cong Li	Carlin	1:23.037	2.156
EX	George Russell	HitechGP	1:20.898	0.017