Rodin Motorsport’s Callum Voisin has secured his maiden Pole position at the F3 Qualifying session of the 2024 Belgian GP. The Brit will start from the front of the grid in Sunday’s Feature race beside MP Motorsport’s Alex Dunne in P2. Leonardo Fornaroli secured P3, followed by Sebastián Montoya.
An enormous traffic jam in the final minute of the session caught out the likes of Luke Browning and Christian Mansell, who sit in P2 and P5 in the Championship standings respectively. In a closely-fought Championship, Browning’s P7 start could prove a huge problem for his contention, and Mansell’s P20 start could spell the end of his.
As It Happened
Drivers were keen to get o track for the F3 Qualifying session at the 2024 Belgian GP; the length of the track means drivers look to use every moment wisely with limited scope for flying laps.
First to set a flying lap time was Martinus stenshorne followed by his teammates Luke Browning and Cian Shields. While Browning had a minor mistake near the end of his first flying lap, the Brit, who topped the Practice session, was the quickest of the three with a 2:06.465. In fact, he remained the quickest car on track as over 20 more drivers completed their laps. The Hitech remained in P1 until Van Amersfoort Racing’s Noel León went quicker with a 2:06.104.
In a second flurry of flying laps as the clock hit the ten-minute mark, the ARTs of Laurens Van Hoepen and Christian Mansell sat P1 and P2 respectively with a 2:05.507 and 2:05.518 respectively. Tuukka Taponen, in his first F3 race weekend replacing Nikola Tsolov who was banned from competing this weekend, sat in P8.
Track Limits Violations
There were multiple track time deletions including León, Boya, Dunne, Meguetounif and Wurz. Determined to get a time on the board, León was on another flying lap with 19 minutes left to go. However, this time was also deleted due to a second track limits violation.
At the half-way point in the session, the grid began to return to the pits for a tyre change. Drivers were failing to improve their lap times as the new tarmac began to take its toll on the Pirelli tyres.
Three drivers remained on track. Browning, on a promising lap, had an off at Pouhon, ruining his lap and potentially his Qualifying session. He was demoted to P20 as both of his teammates bettered their times and moved up the board.
A Busy Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
With ten minutes to go, the track was once again filled with cars as all but the Hitech Pulse-Eights started their outlaps. Many found themselves completing extra build-laps to get better track positioning on a busy Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.
León embarked on yet another flying lap with five minutes to go, still struggling to keep the Van Amersfoort Racing car on track. The sliding didn’t have much of an impact on his lap, however, as he shot to the top of the field with a 2:04.545 and two purple sectors. Behind him, the two ARTs struggled to better their kaos
A late push saw a huge chunk of the grid consecutively hitting P1, as Montoya, Fornaroli, Dunne and Voisin bunnyhopped Leon. The mistakes by the ARTs proved to be costly as Mansell and Van Hoepen sat in P20 and P15 respectively.
Roadblock Ruining Runs
As the final minute approached of the F3 Qualifying session of the 2024 Belgian GP, a wall of crawling cars four-wide rolled through the circuit. Those on their flying laps were forced to give up unable to make it through the traffic, and Fornaroli and Mansell were unable to cross the line in time for one more lap.
Those who were lucky to get one more lap in failed to improve. Rodin Motorsport’s Callum Voisin therefore secured his first Pole with a 2:04.321, followed by MP Motorsport’s Dunne in P2 and Trident’s Fornaroli in P3. Another Trident will start on Pole in the Sprint; Santiago Ramos will sit at the front of the grid beside Tim Tramnitz, and the third Trident of Sami Meguetounif behind.
Photo credit: Formula Motorsport Ltd
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