F3 is one of the many supporting races taking place in Barcelona this weekend, along with F2 and W Series. With a different race format to F1 sees practice on Friday followed by qualifying that afternoon/evening, to a Saturday morning sprint race with a top 10 reverse qualifying grid, to the main feature race taking place on Sunday.
Friday Qualifying saw last minute pushes to secure pole position, Roman Stanek the Trident drive was able to get ahead after a slight mistake made by him in the beginning of the qualifying session. He was able to get ahead of Victor Martins. Alex Smolyar rounds out the top 3 positions inching out Isack Hadjar and Arthur Leclerc. Notably Juan Manuel Correa finishing in the top 10 upon his F3 return this season.
With just 6 minutes left of the qualifying session saw the track filled with drivers trying to get their second and final push in order to move up the starting grid ahead of Saturday and Sundays races, again with Saturday having a reverse grid to start. Half of the field was separated by only a matter of seconds, with drivers crawling to reach the final chicane to finish the session.
Stanek set the fastest first sector time and followed it with 2 personal best sectors to claim pole position with a time of 1:33:516, Victor Martins set a personal best in the first sector but abandoned his push to give the Trident driver pole and him settling for second.
Sprint Race
Now onto the sprint race, it was hometown hero Campos Racing driver David Vidales who takes the top podium, for his and the teams home race. The Spanish rookie was able to get off the grid nicely having a strong start but was felt with pressure from start to finish of the race. Jak Crawford racing closely behind and even having moments which saw them wheel to wheel at time of the 20 lap race, but the Prema driver had to take second place in the race. Third place saw a multi-car driver battle Juan Manuel Correia who started in p3 on the grid, fought long and hard to hold the third spot but saw his tyre fade which allowed MP Motorsport Caio Collet to overtake to finish third on a circuit that his won last year in his rookie year. Prema Arthur Leclerc wasn’t able to pass Correia thus finishing this sprint race 5th, Alex Smolyar moved 4 places to finish 6th ahead of Kaylen Frederick and tomorrows pole sitter Roman Stanek.
3 drivers not able to finish the race Nazim Azman, Franco Colapinto who saw his engine cover come off mid race saw him forced to retire and was current leader of the F3 Driver championship Victor Martins had to retire due to engine problem early on in the race. This allowed the change in the driver standings ahead of tomorrows race, with Martins retirement he dropped 3 places to currently sit P4 with 36 point however he is starting the feature race on the front row in P2. Stanek tomorrows pole sitter is currently P3 in the standing with 38 point. Jak Crawford with the help of finishing second in today race is now P2 with 42. And leading the championship one point ahead of his team mate, with a points finish today see Arthur Leclerc leading with 43 points in the F3 Championship.
Prema leads in constructors championship with 102 points followed by ART Grand Prix with 71 and Trident 57 rounding the top 3.
To mention unfortunately Zane Maloney the boy from Barbados the nickname coined by him missed the weighbridge in qualifying thus seeing him having to start from the pit lane for both races, he originally finished P12 in qualifying.
Feature Race takes place tomorrow morning at 9am UK time.