Lando Norris (Carlin) was the fastest in second qualifying of the FIA Formula 3 European Championship at the 4.307 kilometres long Circuit Zandvoort in the dunes on the North Sea coast.
The British McLaren junior driver was classified ahead of his compatriots Callum Ilott (Prema Powerteam) and Jake Hughes (Hitech Grand Prix) as well as his team-mate Ferdinand Habsburg (Carlin) from Austria, who were classified in second to fourth place.
Because Norris failed to slow down sufficiently for yellow flags, he will be dropped two places on the grid for the 20th race of the FIA Formula 3 European Championship season, so that Ilott will be lining up first on the grid. In the ranking of the second-fastest lap times, used to determine the starting grid positions for the 21st race of the season, Norris was classified ahead of Habsburg, points’ leader Maximilian Günther (Prema Powerteam) and Guanyu Zhou (Prema Powerteam).
Starting grid race two
Callum Ilott (1m28.161s) moved up into first place early in the session ahead of Maximilian Günther (1m28.370s) and Jehan Daruvala (Carlin, 1m28.771s). Some seven minutes into the session, most of the youngsters turned into the pit lane to get fresh tyres. With a little less than nine minutes remaining, all drivers were back out on track and ready for the next attack.
Firstly, Jake Hughes (1m28.220s) was in first place, but then Maximilian Günther came to the fore. With his next fast lap, the German turned down the successful attack by Guanyu Zhou (1m28.427s), so that the Chinese only was on top for a few seconds. Günther, however, wasn’t able to hold on to first place until the end either, because a little bit later, Lando Norris (1m28.038s) was faster once again.
A few moments later, Jehan Daruvala spun and hit the barriers, prompting race control to briefly interrupt qualifying. Once the action resumed, Jake Hughes was the first to move up into the lead before Callum Ilott toppled him and finally Lando Norris made a successful attempt.
An off-track excursion by David Beckmann (Motopark, 1m28.505s) with a few seconds remaining and the subsequent yellow flags that force the drivers to slow down at the relevant location effectively stopped qualifying early.
Thus, Norris ended up with the fastest time in qualifying, followed by Callum Ilott, Jake Hughes, Ferdinand Habsburg (1m28.343s), Maximilian Günther, Nikita Mazepin (Hitech Grand Prix, 1m28.381s), Guanyu Zhou, David Beckmann and Harrison Newey (Van Amersfoort Racing, 1m28.585s).
Joel Eriksson (Motopark, 1m28.673s), who initially was classified tenth, lost his tenth place to Ralf Aron (Hitech Grand Prix, 1m28.662s) because of disrespecting yellow flags. Moreover, the following drivers were given a two places’ grid penalty for yellow flag infringements: Lando Norris, Ferdinand Habsburg, Maximilian Günther, Nikita Mazepin, Guanyu Zhou, Ralf Aron, Joel Eriksson, Marino Sato (Motopark, 1m29.238s) and Ameya Vaidyanathan (Carlin, 1m30.050s). As a result, Callum Ilott will be starting from pole position.
Startig grid race three
In the ranking of the second-fastest lap times of every driver, Lando Norris (1m28.271s) came out on top. Second place for Ferdinand Habsburg (1m28.349s) resulted into a clean sweep of the front row of the grid for the third race of the Zandvoort weekend.
Maximilian Günther (1m28.381s) secured third place while Guanyu Zhou (1m28.636s) inherited fourth place from Callum Ilott (1m28.814s). Like some other drivers, the Brit was penalised for yellow flag infringements and dropped back in the classification.
Jake Hughes (1m28.729s), David Beckmann (1m28.743s), Callum Ilott, Pedro Piquet (Van Amersfoort Racing, 1m29.021s), Ralf Aron (1m29.027s) and Harrison Newey (1m29.081s) rounded out the top ten in the ranking of the second-fastest laps.
Lando Norris (Carlin): “Today, the red flags came at an extremely inconvenient time for me, because exactly at that time I wanted to attack with my first set of tyres.”
“When I wanted to attack with my second set of tyres, yellow flags prevented me from doing so. With my own performance, I am also happier than after first qualifying when I had the feeling that I could have done better.”