Williams F1 protege Stroll beats Russell to Red Bull Ring F3 poles

Russell was on pole for race two going into the final minute, only for Canadian Stroll to wrestle his Prema Powerteam Dallara-Mercedes to a time just 0.002 seconds quicker than the Fenlander's Hitech Grand Prix machine.

The effort came at the end of a tense session for championship leader Stroll and team-mate Gunther, who had languished down the times entering the final stages.

"It was a bit nerve-wracking," admitted Stroll. "In the beginning we actually came into the pitlane because of traffic and we came out still in traffic!

"It was, 'How the hell are we gonna get out of here?' and I said to my engineer, 'We need to find a way out of this.'

"It was only in the last two laps I had a chance to improve and I nailed both laps."

Russell's last lap began with him running wide at Turn 1 and breaching track limits, and fell four tenths short anyway as he caught up Callum Ilott over the last couple of corners.

Ilott and his Van Amersfoort Racing machine were well in the mix for pole, and the 17-year-old held it briefly with a couple of minutes remaining, but he ended up third overall.

On second-best times, Ilott's last-lap effort moves him up to a front-row start for race three, while Russell drops to sixth.

Superb comebacks from Motopark-run Red Bull junior Niko Kari and Mucke Motorsport's David Beckmann gave them fourth and fifth respectively, after Kari missed all of morning free practice and Beckmann only got out for the last 20 minutes of the morning running.

On second-best times Beckmann - another to briefly hold pole in the closing stages - lost his third on the grid for race three to a track-limits penalty, putting Kari up to third and the only-just-16 German down to fifth.

Kari's Motopark/Red Bull stablemate Sergio Sette Camara recovered from his first-qualifying crash to go sixth fastest, but drops to 11th on second-best times.

Gunther was unlucky to catch up Peter Li over the critical last couple of laps, the German ending up seventh on both grids.

Prema rookie Ralf Aron was eighth fastest, but advances to fourth on second-best times for race three, while Mucke's Mikkel Jensen and Motopark racer Joel Eriksson completed the top 10 for race two.

For race three, Eriksson moves up to eighth from Ben Barnicoat (Hitech) and Jensen.

RACE TWO QUALIFYING

RACE THREE QUALIFYING