Euro F3 Monza: Raffaele Marciello takes pole for third race

Italian blitzed his way to the top in his Prema Powerteam Dallara-Mercedes by 0.165 seconds over Pascal Wehrlein, who earlier took pole for races one and two.

Marciello was happy with his performance at the end of a day that has given him top-three starting positions for all three races.

"The lap before was even better," he said. "but on that lap I didn't get a slipstream.

"On my pole lap I did get one and I got the time. I'm happy - the car is very good and easy to drive."

Backing up such sentiments on the Prema set-up were team-mates Alex Lynn, Lucas Auer and Eddie Cheever, who claimed third, fourth and seventh respectively.

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Like Marciello, Lynn felt that he completed an even better lap than his fastest one, but without a slipstream it was slower.

Wehrlein's form with the Mucke Motorsport Dallara-Mercedes team is in stark contrast to team-mate Felix Rosenqvist, one of the hotly-tipped title contenders.

Rosenqvist, who was fastest in free practice, could not put his finger on what was wrong with the car after struggling to 12th in the times.

Pipo Derani made a big leap forward from the earlier qualifying session to take fifth in his Fortec Motorsport Dallara-Mercedes, with Britons Jordan King and Harry Tincknell sixth and eighth respectively in their Carlin Dallara-Volkswagens.

Completing the top 10 are the Mercedes-powered EuroInternational car of Tom Blomqvist and the Nissan-engined T-Sport car of Will Buller.

Race 3 grid:

Pos  Driver               Team/Car                    Time       Gap
 1.  Raffaele Marciello   Prema Dallara-Merc          1m44.781s
 2.  Pascal Wehrlein      Mucke Dallara-Merc          1m44.946s  + 0.165s
 3.  Alex Lynn            Prema Dallara-Merc          1m44.987s  + 0.206s
 4.  Lucas Auer           Prema Dallara-Merc          1m45.026s  + 0.245s
 5.  Pipo Derani          Fortec Dallara-Merc         1m45.240s  + 0.459s
 6.  Jordan King          Carlin Dallara-VW           1m45.259s  + 0.478s
 7.  Eddie Cheever        Prema Dallara-Merc          1m45.296s  + 0.515s
 8.  Harry Tincknell      Carlin Dallara-VW           1m45.321s  + 0.540s
 9.  Tom Blomqvist        EuroIntern'l Dallara-Merc   1m45.355s  + 0.574s
10.  Will Buller          T-Sport Dallara-Nissan      1m45.452s  + 0.671s
11.  Sven Muller          Ma-con Dallara-VW           1m45.530s  + 0.749s
12.  Felix Rosenqvist     Mucke Dallara-Merc          1m45.547s  + 0.766s
13.  Felix Serralles      Fortec Dallara-Merc         1m45.662s  + 0.881s
14.  Josh Hill            Fortec Dallara-Merc         1m45.717s  + 0.936s
15.  Lucas Wolf           URD Dallara-Merc            1m46.748s  + 0.967s
16.  Dennis van de Laar   Van Amersfoort Dallara-VW   1m45.774s  + 0.993s
17.  Nicholas Latifi      Carlin Dallara-VW           1m45.822s  + 1.041s
18.  Roy Nissany          Mucke Dallara-Merc          1m45.919s  + 1.138s
19.  Mitchell Gilbert     Mucke Dallara-Merc          1m46.143s  + 1.362s
20.  Mans Grenhagen       Van Amersfoort Dallara-VW   1m46.204s  + 1.423s
21.  Antonio Giovinazzi   Double R Dallara-Merc       1m46.332s  + 1.551s
22.  Jann Mardenborough   Carlin Dallara-VW           1m46.355s  + 1.574s
23.  Andre Rudersdorf     Ma-con Dallara-VW           1m46.725s  + 1.944s
24.  Spike Goddard        T-Sport Dallara-Nissan      1m46.964s  + 2.183s
25.  Sean Gelael          Double R Dallara-Merc       1m47.218s  + 2.437s
26.  Gary Thompson        Ferraris Dallara-Merc       1m47.223s  + 2.442s
27.  Dmitry Suranovich    Fortec Dallara-Merc         1m47.596s  + 2.815s
28.  Tatiana Calderon     Double R Dallara-Merc       1m47.763s  + 2.982s
29.  Sandro Zeller        Zeller Dallara-Merc         1m47.782s  + 3.001s
30.  Michela Cerruti      Ferraris Dallara-Merc       1m48.981s  + 4.200s