Spa F3: Novalak tops practice ahead of Rasmussen

The Trident driver, who sits sixth in the championship, topped the timesheet with a 2m05.330s – one of only two drivers to break into the 2m05s.

He finished ahead of HWA Racelab rookie Oliver Rasmussen, who set a 2m05.825s, despite his best start of the season so far being 16th.

Campos Racing’s Lorenzo Colombo finished in third, less than eight-tenths behind the leader, with Trident driver Jack Doohan in fourth and Jak Crawford (Hitech Grand Prix) in fifth.

Drivers encountered some traffic 10 minutes into the session as drivers began to set quicker times, with Alexander Smolyar topping the timesheet with a 2m07.924s, before going quicker with a 2m06.748s.

With 25 minutes to go, the yellow flags came out in sectors two and three after Ayumu Iwasa (Hitech Grand Prix) briefly spun on the still-damp track.

Minutes later, they were waved again in sector two after Zdenek Chovanec came to a stop on the track.

The rookie makes his F3 debut this weekend replacing Reshad de Gerus at Charouz Racing System, with Hunter Yeany driving in place of Enzo Fittipaldi.

The pair will see just 45 minutes of track time before qualifying takes place on Friday afternoon. Yeany finished the session in 20th, with Chovanec in 24th.

Entering the last 20 minutes of the session, Jack Doohan, who took third place in the last feature race at the Hungaroring, led for Trident with a 2m06.356.

Colombo then took the top spot with a 2m06.100s, before he was pipped to the top time by Novalak.

Matteo Nannini (HWA Racelab) and Trident’s David Schumacher came close to making contact in the last five minutes as the former attempted to finish his flying lap while the latter prepared for his.

Campos’ Amaury Cordeel encountered trouble as he made his way back to the pits at the end of the session, coming to a stop on the start-finish straight.

He is also under investigation for heading into the wrong pitlane at the end of the session.

Spa F3 - Practice Results

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Clement Novalak	Trident	14	2'05.330
2	Oliver Rasmussen	HWA AG	15	2'05.825	0.495
3	Lorenzo Colombo	Campos Racing	13	2'06.100	0.770
4	Jack Doohan	Trident	13	2'06.257	0.927
5	Jak Crawford	HitechGP	13	2'06.359	1.029
6	Frederik Vesti	ART Grand Prix	16	2'06.392	1.062
7	Roman Staněk	HitechGP	12	2'06.448	1.118
8	Alexander Smolyar	ART Grand Prix	16	2'06.709	1.379
9	Olli Caldwell	Prema Powerteam	16	2'06.781	1.451
10	Johnathan Hoggard	Jenzer Motorsport	16	2'06.798	1.468
11	Ayumu Iwasa	HitechGP	12	2'06.813	1.483
12	Matteo Nannini	HWA AG	15	2'06.841	1.511
13	Dennis Hauger	Prema Powerteam	16	2'06.888	1.558
14	Arthur Leclerc	Prema Powerteam	16	2'06.944	1.614
15	Victor Martins	MP Motorsport	16	2'07.062	1.732
16	Logan Sargeant	Charouz Racing System	14	2'07.175	1.845
17	Caio Collet	MP Motorsport	16	2'07.187	1.857
18	Juan Manuel Correa	ART Grand Prix	15	2'07.241	1.911
19	David Schumacher	Trident	15	2'07.468	2.138
20	Hunter Yeany	Charouz Racing System	18	2'07.497	2.167
21	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport	17	2'07.661	2.331
22	Rafael Villagómez	HWA AG	16	2'07.738	2.408
23	László Tóth	Campos Racing	16	2'07.748	2.418
24	Zdenek Chovanec	Charouz Racing System	17	2'07.904	2.574
25	Tijmen van	MP Motorsport	15	2'08.204	2.874
26	Jonny Edgar	Carlin	15	2'08.332	3.002
27	Ido Cohen	Carlin	16	2'08.415	3.085
28	Amaury Cordeel	Campos Racing	16	2'09.493	4.163
29	Filip Ugran	Jenzer Motorsport	0
View full results