Doohan leads Austrian practice as pace nears lap record territory

A rapid FIA Formula 3 practice session at the Red Bull Ring saw the series’ most recent winner Jack Doohan lead the way for Trident as the pace ramped up ahead of qualifying.

This weekend sees the first appearance of the year for the Pirelli medium compound tyres and the times saw a big shake up in the final minutes as the majority stepped on the gas to set representative times.

Doohan’s 1:19:745 was over two tenths quicker than the rest which is an impressive gap on such a short lap and he was only three tenths of the lap record, set by Sebastián Fernández in last year’s qualifying session. Although Caio Collet squeezed into the 1:18s in testing earlier this year.

PREMA looked strong once again as Olli Caldwell went second fastest for the Italian team ahead of Hitech GP’s Jak Crawford who was optimistic going into the weekend at one of his preferred tracks on the calendar.

Frederik Vesti was fourth fastest after failing to convert pole position in France into a big scoring weekend while his ART teammate and double race winner Aleksandr Smolyar was sixth, with Logan Sargeant in between.

Arthur Leclerc and Dennis Hauger made sure all three PREMA’s made it into the top ten in seventh and eighth respectively while Jonny Edgar showed signs of improvement for Carlin in ninth.

Campos also look to have found something this weekend as Amaury Cordeel was tenth fastest, just ahead of teammate Lorenzo Colombo.

MP Motorsport opted not to switch to the mediums to end the session and saw both Collet and Victor Martins tumble down the order but they were very quick on the carry over hard tyres and should be in the mix come qualifying.