Lawson to start third in Barcelona, Sargeant on pole

PREMA Racing’s Logan Sargeant took his third successive FIA Formula 3 pole position in Qualifying at Barcelona, finishing one tenth quicker than the continually improving HWA RACELAB of Jake Hughes, with Hitech Grand Prix’s Liam Lawson in third, another 0.1s off.

“Considering what happened in the session, it is actually a pretty good result,” commented Lawson. “We had a lot of issues on the first run, big engine problems, and we were lucky enough to fix it, but unfortunately when I went to go back out again, we couldn’t start the car and ended up at the back of the queue.

“Before I started the lap, I spent a minute in the last sector behind the entire field, basically doing 5-10kph, so considering everything, it is not bad.

“The car was quite good today and I was really happy with it, so in that sense, it is a little bit gutting. I think there could have been potential today for at least a front row. But for tomorrow, we just have to focus on the start. I think tyre wear is going to be pretty big round here. The deg is always massive here, so we have to focus on that and grab as many points as we can. ”

Temperatures had risen to 30 degrees since the morning’s Free Practice session, and the cars fed out onto the circuit at the first opportunity.

The grid took their time warming up the tyres and Oscar Piastri came out on top after the first run, directly ahead of his title rivals Lawson and Sargeant. The trio were all within the 1m 33.6s mark, separated by less than a tenth of a second.

They took a tour to cool down before going again, but with their rubber already degraded, no one was able to improve on their lap second time around.

David Beckmann had struggled on the first stint and was sat outside of the top ten at the halfway stage. The Trident racer opted to run in the gap, and set two personal best sectors to leap up to fifth in the order, only losing time in the final part of the track.

Alex Peroni and Lirim Zendeli also opted to run in the gap and were able to find the time in the final part of the circuit that Beckmann had lost, leaping to first and second. The trio briefly dived back into the pits, but managed a quick turnaround and returned to the track with the rest of the grid for one final push.

Hughes enjoyed an extremely brief stint on provisional pole before being usurped by the Championship leader, Sargeant, who went one tenth quicker with a time of 1:32.974.

Lawson managed to just beat out Piastri for third on the final run, only two tenths off the pole-time himself. Sebastián Fernández found enough pace for fifth, ahead of Clément Novalak and Beckmann. Théo Pourchaire, Peroni and Zendeli completed the top ten.

Sargeant will attempt to strengthen his grip at the top of the Drivers’ Championship by converting pole into a win in Race 1 tomorrow, at 10.25am local time.

Qualifying results