Monza European F3: Felix Rosenqvist completes pole hat-trick

The veteran Swede didn't have quite as clear a track as he enjoyed in the first session, but still made the most of it to take yet another pole position in his Prema Powerteam Dallara-Mercedes.

While Rosenqvist's main title rivals struggled in the first qualifying session, Charles Leclerc and Antonio Giovinazzi came good in the late-afternoon second outing to take second and third respectively for both races.

Leclerc and Giovinazzi were mired in the same clump of traffic for the early laps, but wriggled their respective Van Amersfoort Racing Dallara-Volkswagen and Carlin Dallara-VW out of the chaos, with Leclerc finishing 0.160 seconds adrift of Rosenqvist.

"It was a little bit worse track position but I had a lot of championship contenders behind me, and I didn't want to give them a tow," said Rosenqvist, who as he did earlier set three laps quicker than anyone else's best.

"I pushed hard to overtake, and then I had one lap on my own and another with a small slipstream - I tried to do something spectacular after that but realised I couldn't go any quicker!"

Jake Dennis couldn't quite repeat his first-session form, the double Pau winner taking a brace of fourth-fastest times in his Prema machine.

Next up were Mucke Motorsport twins Mikkel Jensen and Santino Ferrucci, the Dane and the American once again buddying up to give each other a tow and earning themselves fifth and sixth positions respectively for race two, and vice versa for race three.

Once again Prema pair Brandon Maisano and Lance Stroll were both in the top 10, taking seventh and ninth respectively, while between them was an eye-opening eighth fastest for Double R Racing's Matt Solomon, by far the Hong Kong racer's best effort yet.

Motopark's Markus Pommer completes the top 10 on the grid for race two.

The lower reaches of the top 10 on the grid for race three were filled by Maisano, Pommer, Carlin runner Gustavo Menezes and Mucke man Maximilian Gunther.

RACE TWO GRID:

RACE THREE GRID: