O’Sullivan Clinches Pole in Tricky Wet/Dry F3 Qualifying Session at Hungaroring

Following a mixed morning practice session at the Hungaroring this morning, the FIA Formula 3 championship switched focus to qualifying this afternoon.

As the session got underway, the majority of the field gambled on slick tyres, apart from the Trident of Leonardo Fornaroli and Gabriele Bortoleto who chose wet tyres. However, the track was still damp, which was demonstrated when Max Esterson, spun coming out of Turn 2, after getting onto a damp patch and briefly causing a yellow flag at that sector until he started it back up and got going again.

Unfortunately for the Trident team, it was soon obvious that it was dry enough for slick tires; After two laps the drivers had worn through their tyres and pitted for slicks. The duo returned to track but were unable to set a lap time after Oliver Grey crashed at Turn 3 and broke his front wing and suspension bringing out the red flag.  

From this point on, it was a case of the track getting drier and grippier each time a car passed through, and in the end, it was Zak O Sullivan who mastered the tricky conditions to take pole position with a time of 1:31.091. Dino Beganovic was second quickest and Leonardo Fornaroli was third.

Championship leader Gabriele Bortoleto will line up in ninth place on the grid for Sunday’s Sprint race, while Gabriele Mini secured the reverse grid pole for tomorrow’s feature race.

Rounding out the top 10 it was Franco Colapinto in fourth, Oliver Goethe in fifth, Paul Aron in sixth behind both Prema teammates, Nikola Tsolov in seventh, Jonny Edgar in eighth, Bortoleto in ninth, Christian Mansell in tenth, Taylor Bernard in eleventh, and Mini twelfth. 

The Formula 3 feature race will get underway tomorrow at 9:50 local time for the 19 laps or 40 minutes, whichever comes first.