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.”

This weekend at the Norisring, the first half of the 2017 FIA Formula 3 European Championship season will be completed.

Joel Eriksson (Motopark) has the best position in the fight for the unofficial mid-season title. After all, the Swede travels to Nuremberg’s 2.3-kilometre long street circuit as championship leader. Five points behind him, the best German driver on the grid, Maximilian Günther (Prema Powerteam), holds second position, followed by the Britons Callum Ilott (Prema Powerteam) and Lando Norris (Carlin).

Apart from Günther, Mick Schumacher (Prema Powerteam), David Beckmann (Motopark) and Keyvan Andres (Motopark) also represent the German colours on the competitive grid of young international drivers.

Maximilian Günther is the only one of the top four drivers who already won a race at the Norisring. Two years ago, the Bavarian who lives only 300 kilometres away from Nuremberg and turns 20 on Sunday made it to the top step of the podium. And in the following year he added a third place to his Norisring record. The best Norisring result of Joel Eriksson so far was a fifth place. But the Swede had to cope with a dose of bad luck in 2016. While in the lead he was pushed out of the race by a rival who missed his braking spot. Callum Ilott’s best results in Nuremberg were two seven places and rookie Lando Norris hasn’t raced at the Norisring yet.

A fact that also applies to Keyvan Andres and Mick Schumacher: 18-year old rookie Mick Schumacher who secured his first FIA Formula 3 European Championship podium in Monza is going to make his Norisring debut this weekend. Just as 17-year old Keyvan Andres who gathered his first single-seater racing experiences in North America and also is about to contest his first races in Nuremberg.

David Beckmann, however, already raced in Nuremberg last year and secured a top-10 result. And following his difficult start into the 2017 season, the Motopark driver secured his best results in the 2017 season to date by finishing fifth at the Hungaroring twice two weeks ago.

David Beckmann (Motopark): “The Norisring is a very special circuit and I always love to travel to Nuremberg. It’s a very short racetrack and I expect the racing to be very close. I believe that the qualifying sessions already will be pretty exciting and the races certainly also won’t be boring as this street circuit actually offers overtaking opportunities. The braking zones are the key areas as you can lose a lot even if you miss one only slightly."

"I also like that the Norisring race meeting always attracts a big crowd. It’s great to witness the people’s enthusiasm for motor racing and I love racing in front of packed grandstands. I travel to the Norisring in a very confident mood."

"Since I switched to Team Motopark things are running better for me. And I think that we can keep on improving as we still have to get used to the new arrangement. Furthermore, Motopark demonstrated as early as 2016 that they have got what it takes to be fast at the Norisring. Joel could have won if he hadn’t been pushed out of the race from the lead by a rival.”

In an action-packed FIA Formula 3 European Championship race at the 2.3 kilometres long Norisring in Nuremberg, Maximilian Günther (Prema Powerteam) claimed victory.

The German scored his fourth FIA Formula 3 European Championship season win and thus also moved up into the lead of the championship standings. Second place went to Pedro Piquet (Van Amersfoort Racing), who scored his maiden FIA Formula 3 European Championship podium finish. Moreover, the Brazilian secured the first Formula 3 podium result of the 2017 season for his team Van Amersfoort Racing.

Chinese Guanyu Zhou (Prema Powerteam) finished third from Swede Joel Eriksson (Motopark), who moved up from 17th on the grid to fourth at the finish with a strong performance. Still, the Motopark driver had to surrender his points’ lead to race winner Gunther.

At the start, Jake Hughes (Hitech Grand Prix) converted his pole position into the race lead, followed by Pedro Piquet and Maximilian Günther. While Günther overtook Piquet in turn one, Callum Ilott (Prema Powerteam) and Ferdinand Habsburg (Carlin) collided in the midfield. On lap two, Piquet lost his third place to Lando Norris (Carlin), who then started putting pressure under Günther. The experienced German initially held off all the attacks by the British rookie driver.

Meanwhile, Joel Eriksson, who was only 17th after qualifying, used the opening stages of the race to work his way up into seventh place. On lap 15, he overtook Joey Mawson (Van Amersfoort Racing) and Harrison Newey (Van Amersfoort Racing) within a few metres only. Just after that, the Australian’s race came to an early end following a collision with Jehan Daruvala (Carlin) and a subsequent crash into the wall. Race control imposed a full course yellow, with no overtaking and reduced speed for all competitors.

"My start was good and I even managed to take second place in the first corner. I was always close to the leader, but I also knew that I couldn’t afford a mistake. I patiently waited for my chance to occur." Said Gunther

"I am really happy with victory in my home race at the Norisring and also with the 25 points, of course."

As the field returned to racing speed, Norris went past Günther and immediately put Jake Hughes, who was still in the lead, under pressure. On lap 32, there was contact between the two Brits. Hughes spun and retired while Norris dropped back to third behind Maximilian Günther as the new leader and Pedro Piquet. Just before the finish, the McLaren junior driver incurred a 20 seconds’ time penalty because of the collision and he dropped out of the point-scoring positions as a result.

Gunther won ahead of Pedro Piquet, Guanyu Zhou and Joel Eriksson. Harrison Newey, Jehan Daruvala, Mick Schumacher (Prema Powerteam), Tadasuke Makino (Hitech Grand Prix), Ralf Aron (Hitech Grand Prix) and Nikita Mazepin (Hitech Grand Prix) rounded out the top ten.

In second qualifying of the FIA Formula 3 European Championship at the Hungaroring, nobody was faster than Callum Ilott (Prema Powerteam). As a result, the Brit will be starting tomorrow’s eleventh race of the season at the 4.381 kilometres long Formula 1 circuit near the Hungarian capital of Budapest from the best grid position.

Behind him, Joel Eriksson (Motopark) was classified second from Lando Norris (Carlin), Guanyu Zhou (Prema Powerteam), Jake Hughes (Hitech Grand Prix) and Maximilian Günther (Prema Powerteam). In the ranking of the second-fastest race laps, used to determine the starting grid positions of the third race of each race weekend, the order at the front is Eriksson from Ilott, Norris, Zhou, David Beckmann (Motopark) and Günther.

Starting grid race two

First qualifying still took place on a wet track, but the young FIA Formula 3 European Championship drivers had dry conditions for second qualifying. In the first half, Joel Eriksson (1m35.057s) was still in front, but with a little less than five minutes remaining in the 20 minutes’ session, Callum Ilott (1m34.890s) came to the fore. As Norris (1m35.063s), Zhou (1m35.262s) and Günther (1m35.324s) also went faster than the Swede at that time, he found himself only in fifth position. However, Eriksson, who lost his FIA Formula 3 European Championship points’ lead to Maximilian Günther following his tenth place in the today’s tenth race of the season, countered and moved back up to second place behind Ilott. There, he remained until the end.

Behind him, McLaren junior driver Lando Norris, currently second in the drivers’ standings, was the best-placed rookie. Ferrari protégé Guanyu Zhou posted the fourth-fastest lap time while Jake Hughes (1m35.315s), Maximilian Günther, David Beckmann (Motopark, 1m35.452s) and Joey Mawson (Van Amersfoort Racing, 1m35.465s) were classified in fifth to eighth place. The two youngsters who are backed by the Force India Formula 1 team, Jehan Daruvala (Carlin, 1m35.474s) and Nikita Mazepin (Hitech Grand Prix, 1m35.518s) rounded out the top ten.

Starting grid race three

In the ranking of the second-fastest laps for each driver, Joel Eriksson (1m35.267s) ended up in first place. Ilott (1m35.270s) was defeated by the Swede and had to make do with second place, Lando Norris (1m35.272s) was third. The lap times of this trio were only five thousandths of a second apart. Guanyu Zhou (1m35.279s) secured fourth place, 0.012 seconds down, from David Beckmann (1m35.453s), who claimed his best starting grid position of the season to date. Maximilian Günther (1m35.566s), Jake Hughes (1m35.594s), Joey Mawson (1m35.596s), Nikita Mazepin (1m35.641s) and Jehan Daruvala (1m35.700s) rounded out the top ten.