Vesti finds magic lap for Paul Ricard pole

From almost absolutely nowhere, Frederik Vesti plucked a stunning lap out of the bag to claim pole position in FIA Formula 3.

The Danish driver, part of the Mercedes F1 junior programme, didn’t set any purple sectors on his pole position lap but he was able to keep the tyres in good condition to piece together the whole lap for his second pole in the series.

He was the only driver to go below the 1:51 barrier in his ART as he beat Championship leader and practice pace-setter Dennis Hauger to top spot. The Norwegian won’t be unhappy with second however as he managed to set up his weekend well, just as he did for round one in Barcelona.

The second row of the grid for Sunday’s race will see home hero Victor Martins start from third for MP Motorsport who have found something since last season with Caio Collet fifth behind Trident’s Jack Doohan who couldn’t find an improvement on his final lap.

Clément Novalak, Doohan’s teammate, is another Frenchman on home tarmac this weekend and he qualified sixth ahead of Aleksandr Smolyar who already has a win to his name this season.

That last improvement of the session was a crucial one as Ayumu Iwasa found a chunk of time for Hitech GP to go eighth fastest ahead of Juan Manuel Correa and Logan Sargeant who also benefitted from a late improvement.

Taking reverse grid pole for the first race of the weekend tomorrow morning is Calan Williams after he qualified 12th, just behind David Schumacher who lacked race pace in Barcelona despite a strong qualifying.

Matteo Nannini and Olli Caldwell just missed out on the elusive top 12 in 13th and 14th respectively but it was even worse for Arthur Leclerc who had suspension damage on his first lap which saw him forced to retire from the session, without a lap on the board.