Austria F3: Hauger claims pole as track limits breach denies Collet

MP Motorsport driver Collet was found to have exceeded track limits at Turn 10, which promotes championship leader Hauger to top spot for Sunday's feature race.

Collet’s lap deletion promoted Frederik Vesti (ART Grand Prix) to second, just 0.028s behind Prema driver Hauger, with Vesti's team-mate Alexander Smolyar third.

The top 12 is reversed for tomorrow’s sprint race, which puts Logan Sargeant (Charouz) on pole for that race. Matteo Nannini (HWA Racelab) will start in second, with MP Motorsport’s Victor Martins in third.

The session at the Red Bull Ring was marred by heavy traffic that ruined many drivers’ laps. There will be an investigation after drivers were weaving on track, as well as slowing between Turn 9 and Turn 10.

Clement Novalak (Trident) was out on track first, leading the 30-car procession onto the circuit.

There were several near-misses as the whole field crammed into the short circuit, bunching up on the warm-up lap in an attempt to create a gap for a clean lap and warm the tyres.

Hitech Grand Prix driver Roman Stanek was the first to set a representative fast lap, with a 1m21.082, before being quickly beaten by a succession of other drivers.

Caio Collet

Photo by: Dutch Photo Agency

As the times tumbled, Vesti topped the timesheet, setting a 1m20.153 – just four-hundredths ahead of second placed Sargeant.

By the halfway mark, the top 22 times were within seven-tenths of each other, before drivers dived into the pits for fresh tyres and another chance at a quicker time.

As they exited the pitlane, Enzo Fittipaldi made contact with another car, with the Charouz driver under investigation for an unsafe release.

The session was then red-flagged after Carlin driver Ido Cohen - one of many who had been shown the black and white flag for breaching track limits - stopped on the side of the track near the start-finish line, before restarting several minutes later.

With just three minutes to go, the times began tumbling, with several drivers swapping places to take the lead.

Roman Stanek received a three-place grid drop after the race for impeding Lorenzo Colombo at Turn 9 during the session, and he will now start from P25.

Results

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Dennis Hauger	Prema Powerteam	15	1'19.726
2	Frederik Vesti	ART Grand Prix	15	1'19.754	0.028
3	Alexander Smolyar	ART Grand Prix	15	1'19.801	0.075
4	Caio Collet	MP Motorsport	15	1'19.809	0.083
5	Jak Crawford	HitechGP	15	1'19.817	0.091
6	Clement Novalak	Trident	16	1'19.829	0.103
7	Jack Doohan	Trident	14	1'19.887	0.161
8	Olli Caldwell	Prema Powerteam	15	1'19.900	0.174
9	Arthur Leclerc	Prema Powerteam	15	1'19.975	0.249
10	Victor Martins	MP Motorsport	15	1'20.003	0.277
11	Matteo Nannini	HWA AG	16	1'20.070	0.344
12	Logan Sargeant	Charouz Racing System	15	1'20.101	0.375
13	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport	15	1'20.112	0.386
14	David Schumacher	Trident	16	1'20.148	0.422
15	Enzo Fittipaldi	Charouz Racing System	14	1'20.188	0.462
16	Kaylen Frederick	Carlin	15	1'20.235	0.509
17	Oliver Rasmussen	HWA AG	16	1'20.326	0.600
18	Jonny Edgar	Carlin	16	1'20.444	0.718
19	Ayumu Iwasa	HitechGP	16	1'20.463	0.737
20	Lorenzo Colombo	Campos Racing	15	1'20.634	0.908
21	Tijmen van	MP Motorsport	15	1'20.672	0.946
22	Roman Staněk	HitechGP	16	1'20.676	0.950
23	Amaury Cordeel	Campos Racing	15	1'20.680	0.954
24	Juan Manuel Correa	ART Grand Prix	15	1'20.690	0.964
25	Reshad de	Charouz Racing System	15	1'20.762	1.036
26	Rafael Villagómez	HWA AG	15	1'20.943	1.217
27	Johnathan Hoggard	Jenzer Motorsport	16	1'21.078	1.352
28	László Tóth	Campos Racing	15	1'21.292	1.566
29	Filip Ugran	Jenzer Motorsport	15	1'21.451	1.725
30	Ido Cohen	Carlin	10	1'21.536	1.810
View full results