Williams Formula 1 development driver Lance Stroll earned pole position for the opening round of the Formula 3 European Championship in a gripping qualifying session at Paul Ricard.
The session started on a damp track after incessant morning rain, but after most of the field had undertaken exploratory early laps on rain tyres they pitted for slick rubber and times tumbled.
It was obvious that track positioning would be key, and Canadian Stroll was last across the line before the chequered flag.
Nobody beat Stroll’s time until Nick Cassidy, his team-mate in the Prema Powerteam Dallara-Mercedes squad, moved in front on his final lap.
Running a few seconds behind Cassidy, Stroll then pipped the New Zealander by 0.081 seconds to grab pole.
“I guess it [the track positioning] is luck but I’ll take it,” said Stroll.
“I thought I couldn’t improve because I was close to Maxi [Gunther, Prema team-mate], and I asked the team if I should slow down but they said I had to finish the lap.
“The conditions certainly added a bit of spice!”
Cassidy rued a mistake at the Mistral chicane on the final lap, which forced him to go down a gear lower than usual, but was happy to even make the session after the Prema mechanics fixed damage from a rear-end impact with the wall in morning free practice.
Motopark-run Red Bull junior Niko Kari was the star F3 rookie with third fastest, the 16-year-old Finn just edging out George Russell – the Hitech Grand Prix driver, who was fastest for much of the session, was confident he would have been on pole had he not had to pass a slower car on the final lap, and he also made a mistake.
Russell’s team-mate Ben Barnicoat made a great impression on his F3 debut with fifth, especially as he was unlucky to be first across the line at the flag, with Mucke Motorsport’s Mikkel Jensen taking sixth.
The second Red Bull/Motopark car of Sergio Sette Camara will start the opening round seventh, sharing row four with Gunther, who was the fastest of the four drivers who did not improve on the final lap.
Joel Eriksson made it three Motopark machines in the top nine, with Carlin’s Alessio Lorandi – another not to improve on the final lap – completing the top 10.
