Pau European F3: Prema's Jake Dennis completes triple pole

Dennis took his Racing Steps Foundation-liveried Prema Powerteam Dallara-Mercedes to a time comfortably clear of the opposition in his group, and almost matched that lap on second-fastest times, which determine the grid for Sunday's Pau Grand Prix.

It was enough to beat the best of Charles Leclerc, who topped other group in his Van Amersfoort Racing Dallara-Volkswagen, although the Monegasque was beaten on second-fastest times by Antonio Giovinazzi, who will therefore start his Carlin Dallara-VW on the front row on Sunday.

"I'm unbelievably happy to get my first pole earlier and then get three in one day," said 2012 McLaren AUTOSPORT BRDC Award winner Dennis.

"That's the best place to be at Pau - it's so hard to overtake here I could probably win with three wheels on my car!

"The last two or three laps the car was so good it was incredible."

Second fastest to Dennis in the even-numbered group was Maximilian Gunther, the Mucke Motorsport-run F3 rookie heading Motopark's Markus Pommer in a German two-three.

Alessio Lorandi continued his good form to take fourth in his VAR car, from the spectacular Signature-run Frenchman Dorian Boccolacci.

The session featured the same top five, in identical order, on second-best times.

Leclerc was happy to take a second front-row start, but felt that two ill-timed red flags hampered his efforts to take pole.

The first came with five minutes remaining, and Leclerc was just bringing a new set of tyres in when the session was truncated with one minute left.

Giovinazzi was second fastest overall ahead of VAR's Arjun Maini, the Signature car of Alex Albon and a below-par Felix Rosenqvist (Prema).

Behind Giovinazzi and Leclerc on second-best times came Albon, Maini and Prema's Lance Stroll, who edged team-mate Rosenqvist down to the sixth row for Sunday.

The first red flag in the odd-numbered group occurred when Kang Ling hit the barriers. This gave the EuroInternational team time to repair the damage caused earlier in the session when Gustav Malja sideswiped the wall entering the Foch chicane, only for Malja to then crash again exiting Foch and cause the second stoppage.

The even-numbered session also featured a red flag - this came seven minutes in, due to Pietro Fittipaldi shunting, and the Brazilian thereafter slid down the order as others improved, Fittipaldi joins Mahaveer Raghunathan as a non-qualifier.

Team West-Tec duo Fabian Schiller and Raoul Hyman both had new tyres fitted during their respective session stoppages, and both then crashed at Gare - the first corner - on their out-laps as qualifying resumed.

There was also a bizarre incident for Brandon Maisano, whose rear wing fell off during his session.

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