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Italy’s Gabriele Mini (Prema Racing), last year’s winner in the Principality, will once again start from pole position to attempt the double at 8am on Sunday, in the main race of the FIA Formula 3 Championship, at the 81st Formula 1 Grand Prix of Monaco.
Mini, a member of the Alpine Drivers Academy, was already fastest in free practice on Thursday, but he had to wait until the very end of this session, in bright sunshine, to snatch pole position from Great Britain’s Luke Browning (HiTech): with a time of 1:23.942, Mini was the only driver to go under the one minute and 24 seconds mark on his last attempt, at an average speed of 143 km/h on the streets of the Principality.
Browning finished two tenths of a second behind Mini and he was just 65 thousandths ahead of another Italian, Leonardo Fornaroli (Trident), who leads the Championship after six races. The places of honour were taken by Spaniard Mari Boya (Campos Racing) in 4th place, and Mexican Noel Leon (Van Amersfoort Racing) in 5th. They will all start from the same side of the grid on Sunday morning, assigned to this qualifying Group A.
In the other group (B), the best time was set by Australian Christian Mansell, who has no known relation to Nigel, the Williams world champion. But as there is a one-second gap between Mini’s time and Mansell’s (1:24.921), the Italian driver will be on pole position on Sunday morning.
For Saturday’s Sprint race, the grid will be reversed for the top twelve drivers at the end of qualifications, both groups mixed. And young Frenchman Sami Meguetounif (Trident) will have a lot of work, starting in the middle of the grid for both races of the weekend. The winner at Imola last Sunday, he missed his qualifying session and even hit the rail at Sainte-Dévote, ending with 7th fastest time of Group B, the slowest of the two.
Sprint Race Provisional Starting Grid
