F3: Leonardo Fornaroli takes pole at Silverstone

Leonardo Fornaroli set the fastest time in Formula 3 qualifying at Silverstone. With him from the front row in Sunday’s race will be his Trident teammate Oliver Goethe.

By the time qualifying started at Silverstone, the sun was shining. The start of the session was delayed by three minutes, but after the green traffic light came on at the exit of the pit lane, the riders rushed to the track.

After passing two warm-up laps, the riders began the fast sequence. Luke Browning was the first to show the best time – 1:46.250 s. Behind him a fierce battle broke out between Bortoleto, Goethe, Mini and Aron. Dino Beganovich returned to the pits with a smoking exhaust system. For him, qualifying ended before he even started.

After the first fast lap, the riders cooled down the tires and started attacking again. Paul Aron led the scoresheet with a time of 1:46.191 s. Gabriel Bortoleto could also have beaten Browning, but lost time in the final chicane and finished third on the lap. It was possible to add Leonardo Fornaroli, who drove the best lap – 1: 45.717 s. Franco Colapinto gave him three-tenths, but this time was enough to show the second time.

Nikita Bedrin showed the fourteenth result after the results of the first series of fast laps. On one of the fast laps, the Jenzer rider went off the track.

For the second attempt on new tyres, most of the riders started with just under ten minutes remaining in qualifying. As in the first attempt, the riders laid out two laps of rubber before moving on to fast laps.

Gabriele Mini improved his own time and moved up to second, but his result was soon surpassed by Paul Aron. No one could beat Fornaroli’s result, but the Trident driver added himself (1:45.520s) to take his first pole position in Formula 3.

In the final seconds, Oliver Goethe showed the second fastest time and José-Maria Marti, who occupies second place in the individual classification, moved up to the third line. Championship leader Gabriel Bortoleto qualified fifth. Nikita Bedrin was 19th at the end of the session.

On Saturday, according to the reverse grid rule, the first twelve places start in reverse order. For example, Johnny Edgar will start tomorrow’s race from pole position. Together with him, Mari Boya starts from the front row.