O’Sullivan’s Silverstone stunner seals Carlin’s first FIA F3 pole

Zak O’Sullivan took his and Carlin‘s first-ever pole position in the FIA Formula 3 Championship at Silverstone on Friday afternoon.

As in Free Practice earlier in the day, most of the field went out, set banker laps and boxed again in unison, making it difficult for the 29-car field to find clear track.

Martins improved on his early benchmark time but Maini, Bearman, Leclerc led with just under 20 minutes to go, before Bearman went less than a second ahead, but Maini took it straight back again.

Zane Maloney showed his hand to sit third just past the halfway stage, just ahead of Jonny Edgar, Arthur Leclerc and Caio Collet.

As they did in Free Practice earlier in the day, much of the field spent quite a while in the pits, before all heading out at the same time to try to secure clean air and pole position.

Once they emerged, the MP Motorsport cars were immediately quick, before Zak O’Sullivan went top with a 1:44.597.

Isack Hadjar set the timing screens alight in the first two sectors, but lost time in the final sector and could only improve to P13 with three minutes remaining.

Maloney went just behind O’Sullivan and Arthur Leclerc to go third, while Leclerc’s final effort couldn’t take him above the Carlin driver on what was now a fully dry track.

Caio Collet improved in the middle sector but could only stay fourth, while Jak Crawford went fifth and Roman Stanek sat eighth.

FIA Formula 3 Silverstone Qualifying Results: