Jagonya Ayam with Carlin driver Tom Blomqvist will start both of today’s FIA Formula 3 European Championship races from pole position. The British racer pipped second placed Max Verstappen to the top spot for both races and will line up on pole for both race two and three later today. Team mate Antonio Giovinazzi also put in a strong qualifying effort and will line up just behind in third. 17 year-old Sean Gelael qualified in 17th place.
Damage to the barriers around the Nurburgring following a Volkswagen Scirocco race late on Saturday saw yesterday’s F3 qualifying postponed until early this morning. A very early start for the F3 drivers and teams was at least rewarded by dry and sunny conditions, after the wet running of yesterday.
Blomqvist wasted little time in posting a quick banker lap, the Brit briefly took provisional pole early in the session, but as the times changed quickly he dropped back down the order to fourth place. Blomqvist improved next time round though, a purple first sector restoring him to the top stop ahead of Max Verstappen who had been P1.
Giovinazzi had also made some big improvements, finding a sweet spot in his Carlin run F312 Dallara to sneak up to third place, just before the red flag came out following an accident for Roy Nissany. As the drivers waited in the pits, Blomqvist was still top, Giovinazzi third while Gelael was 17th after coming across traffic on his quickest lap.
When the track action resumed there were just over six minutes remaining for the drivers to better their efforts. Several tried but none were able to string together a complete lap, leaving Blomqvist to take pole for both of today’s races and allowing Red Bull Ring winner Giovinazzi to secure a second row start.
Pole man Blomqvist said, “It was a good session obviously; pole for both races, we’ve got to be happy with that. Pretty interesting session, a red flag with six minutes to go and thankfully no one improved after that. The track was quite green it felt quite dirty there wasn’t a whole lot of grip out there but the car felt great. Two poles is good, we can’t have a better start to the day than that.”
With just a few hours before race two of the weekend, the Jagonya Ayam drivers will be back in action at 11.00 local time this morning.
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