Last Feature Race winner Victor Martins leads the premature rain-hampered session in Imola, beating today’s early pacesetter Kaylen Frederick with a 1:50.134.
In the first ten minutes of the first session, the Hitech driver managed to top the leaderboard with a 1:51.283 before Martins improved on his personal best, with a margin of 1.1s to Frederick.
Right before the first red flag of the session emerged as Jenzer Motorsport’s Ido Cohen got caught up in the gravel, Frederick’s teammate Isack Hadjar secured his place in second with less than 0.1 seconds off the top time.
The second red flag was caused by the pitlane incident that involved all of the PREMA Racing drivers, Arthur Leclerc, Jak Crawford, Oliver Bearman, and Carlin’s Zak O’Sullivan, which will be investigated after the session.
The green flag was out for only a few minutes before the MP Motorsport duo Caio Collet, and Kush Maini suffered from different incidents. Both drivers found themselves stuck in the gravel, and they decided not to restart the session.
Both winners from Bahrain were inside the top three, as Van Amersfoort Racing’s Franco Colapinto completed the session in third fastest before the barrier broke into 1m 51s.
Frederick settled in fourth for the second Hitech Grand Prix car, ahead of the Van Amersfoort Racing pairing, Rafael Villagomez and Franco Colapinto.
Trident’s rookie Zane Maloney gave another impressive result after a solid in-season test weekend in Barcelona, as he finished seventh, ahead of Carlin’s Zak O’Sullivan in eighth fastest.
Ido Cohen managed to complete the first run of the weekend in ninth fastest after bringing out the first red flag, as Trident’s debutant Oliver Rasmussen rounded out the top ten as the last driver in the 1:51s.
The FIA Formula 3 will be back in action for the qualifying session at 3 PM local times.
Free Practice session results:
| 1 | Victor Martins | 1:50.134 | ART Grand Prix |
| 2 | Isack Hajdar | 1:50.168 | Hitech Grand Prix |
| 3 | Roman Stanek | 1:50.959 | Trident |
| 4 | Kaylen Frederick | 1:51.283 | Hitech Grand Prix |
| 5 | Rafael Villagomez | 1:51.324 | Van Amersfoort Racing |
| 6 | Franco Colapinto | 1:51.374 | Van Amersfoort Racing |
| 7 | Zane Maloney | 1:51.582 | Trident |
| 8 | Zak O’Sullivan | 1:51.772 | Carlin |
| 9 | Ido Cohen | 1:51.774 | Jenzer Motorsport |
| 10 | Oliver Rasmussen | 1:51.917 | Trident |
| 11 | Nazim Azman | 1:52.177 | Hitech Grand Prix |
| 12 | David Vidales | 1:52.541 | Campos Racing |
| 13 | Reece Ushijima | 1:52.605 | Van Amersfoort Racing |
| 14 | Hunter Yeany | 1:52.766 | Campos Racing |
| 15 | William Alatalo | 1:53.095 | Jenzer Motorsport |
| 16 | Josep Maria Marti | 1:53.208 | Campos Racing |
| 17 | Gregoire Saucy | 1:53.213 | ART Grand Prix |
| 18 | Enzo Trulli | 1:54.536 | Carlin |
| 19 | Frederico Malvestiti | 1:54.557 | Jenzer Motorsport |
| 20 | Caio Collet | 1:55.388 | MP Motorsport |
| 21 | Alexander Smolyar | 1:55.983 | MP Motorsport |
| 22 | Brad Benavides | 1:56.325 | Carlin |
| 23 | Arthur Leclerc | 2:01.373 | PREMA Racing |
| 24 | Kush Maini | 2:06.241 | MP Motorsport |
| 25 | Laszlo Toth | Charouz Racing System | |
| 26 | Jak Crawford | PREMA Racing | |
| 27 | Oliver Bearman | PREMA Racing | |
| 28 | David Schumacher | Charouz Racing System | |
| 29 | Francesco Pizzi | Charouz Racing System |
