With Ralf Aron (Hitech Grand Prix) and Jake Hughes (Hitech Grand Prix), two drivers of the Hitech Grand Prix team locked out the first two positions in second qualifying of the FIA Formula 3 European Championship at the Norisring.
For the Estonian, it is the first FIA Formula 3 European Championship pole position, his team-mate Hughes already having been unbeatable in first qualifying at the same venue one day earlier. At the 2.3 kilometres long street circuit in Nuremberg, Maximilian Günther (Prema Powerteam) ended up third from the two best-placed rookie drivers Lando Norris (Carlin) and Jehan Daruvala (Carlin), as well as Pedro Piquet (Van Amersfoort Racing). In the ranking of the second-fastest lap times, Günther came out on top from Daruvala, Aron, Hughes, Ferdinand Habsburg (Carlin) and Norris.
Starting grid race two
Qualifying for the 14th FIA Formula 3 European Championship season race provided plenty of variation for the spectators. Drivers to take turns in the lead included Maximilian Günther (0m47.963s), Lando Norris (0m47.971s), David Beckmann (Motopark, 0m48.202s) and Jehan Daruvala (0m47.973s), but eventually, Ralf Aron (0m47.859s) came out on top. In the process, he toppled his team-mate Jake Hughes (0m47.941s) from first place and ensured that two cars of the Hitech Grand Prix team will be on the front row for tomorrow morning’s race. Maximilian Günther, the leader in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship points’ standings, secured third place and posted a sub-48-seconds lap time, just like Lando Norris, Jehan Daruvala and Pedro Piquet (0m47.998s). Callum Ilott (Prema Powerteam, 0m48.046s) ended up seventh in qualifying from Harrison Newey (Van Amersfoort Racing, 0m48.048s), Nikita Mazepin (Hitech Grand Prix, 0m48.058s) and Guanyu Zhou (Prema Powerteam, 0m48.077s). The fastest lap times of the entire field were within 0.548 seconds only.
Starting grid race three
Maximilian Günther (0m47.965s) posted the best second-fastest lap time and thus secured pole position for the 15th race of the season. The German also needed less than 48 seconds for this lap. Next up behind Günther were Daruvala (0m48.048s), Aron (0m48.058s), Hughes (0m48.068s), Habsburg (0m48.088s), Norris (0m48.134s), Zhou (0m48.139s), Mazepin (0m48.181s), Ilott (0m48.201s) and Joel Eriksson (Motopark, 0m48.201s) with an identical time as Ilott.
Ralf Aron (Hitech Grand Prix): “This is my maiden FIA Formula 3 European Championship pole position. So far, my best F3 qualifying result was a second place and of course, I am very happy with the improvement. Especially at the start of the season, we were having many problems, but we worked hard and we never gave up. That we are now first and second in this qualifying as a team is a nice reward. I hope that we can convert our two front row grid positions into a good race result tomorrow, the team has definitely deserved it.”
Maximilian Günther (Prema Powerteam): “It was a good qualifying, but as expected, it was close. I am very happy with the result, first and third place on the grid are very good positions at this track. All in all, I dealt quite well with traffic on the track, even though I didn’t have a clear track on my final lap and therefore was unable to improve. Together with my victory from this afternoon, it has been a very good day for me, but there won’t be any celebrations now. I am already fully focussed on being equally successful tomorrow.”