Championship frontrunners Oscar Piastri and Logan Sargeant will start the penultimate race of the 2020 season further down the order as penalties scupper the championship fight.
On Friday morning Formula 3 arrived in Mugello for the final round of the 2020 season. Both of the championship frontrunners Oscar Piastri and Logan Sargeant carried across grid place penalties from Monza, making pole position an impossibility. However, other contenders aimed to capitalise on the misfortune of the PREMA pair.
As qualifying commenced, it was David Beckmann who struck first, setting a competitive 1:36.1, a tenth ahead of Trident teammate Lirim Zendeli. After the second round of push laps, Beckmann improved upon his time whilst Frederik Vesti moved onto the front row of the grid momentarily with a 1:36.149. Both Sargeant and Piastri also found improvements on their second laps with all three PREMA’s occupying the top five.
However, it was Jake Hughes who seized early provisional pole by nine thousand of a second ahead of Beckmann and Sargeant. Following the second round of laps, most drivers returned to the pits with fifteen minutes remaining of the session.
Second Half
With ten minutes remaining most drivers left the pits with the aim of gaining space on the track. Vesti was the first driver to attempt a flying lap in the final minutes of qualifying but found his lap ruined after entering the gravel briefly in sector 1. In the pack that followed it was Zendeli who fared best, taking provisional pole three-hundredths of a second ahead of Sargeant. Piastri was unable to challenge his teammate’s time and could only reach P8, three tenths off the pace.
In the final qualifying laps of the session (and the 2020 season), nobody was able to challenge Zendeli who took pole for the second time in three weeks. When their grid penalties are taken into consideration, both Sargeant and Piastri will fall further down the order from their qualifying positions of P2 and P11. With only two races remaining and the championship still to play for, both races at Mugello promise excitement and drama as Sargeant, Piastri, and Pourchaire battle it out for the 2020 F3 Championship.
Top 10
1. L. Zendeli Trident 1:35.328
2. L. Sargeant PREMA 1:35.362
3. J. Hughes HWA Racelab 1:35.453
4. F. Vesti PREMA 1:35.548
5. E. Fittipaldi HWA Racelab 1:35.561
6. S. Fernandez ART Grand Prix 1:35.594
7. T. Pourchaire ART Grand Prix 1:35.631
8. D. Beckmann Trident 1:35.646
9. D. Haugher Hitech Grand Prix 1:35.682
10. A. Smolyar ART Grand Prix 1:35.693
Featured Image Credit: fiaformula3.com
