GP3 Austria Qualifying: Luca Ghiotto wins pole position

After six weeks, the GP3 series returned, this time in Austria. The qualifying session was claimed by Luca Ghiotto who will be on pole for the feature race later today. Jimmy Eriksson took the early lead, but was soon overtaken by Mitchell Gilbert. However, Eriksson returned to the lead with 1:22.344, but was yet again overtaken by Gilbert with 1:21.211. Marvin Kirchhofer went to the lead by doing 1:21.165, but Gilbert set the time of 1:21.022 to return to the top.

Alex Palou and championship leader Esteban Ocon both found a way to the top, but Palou was topped by Luca Ghiotto with 1:20.138, who later improved his lap time to 1:20.039. As light rain started falling, the drivers were more careful, thus slower, but some of them managed to improve their times, eg. Jimmy Eriksson who climbed to fourth.

In the final ten minutes, Kirchhofer decreased Ghiotto’s lead to 0.147s by lapping Red Bull Ring in 1:20.186, but then went to first with 1:19.803. Other drivers also managed to improve their times and Esteban Ocon did it in the best way possible by going to first with 1:19.748. However, Ocon returned to the provisional pole with 1:19.555. With 3 minutes to go, Alex Palou caused a short yellow flag when, after setting best times in two sectors, he spun off track almost collecting a barrier. Luca Ghiotto returned to the top with 1:19.350. In the last seconds of the session, Oscar Tunjo ended up in the gravel. Luca Ghiotto kept his first spot in front of Ocon, Palou, Kirchhofer and Bernstorff in top five. Behind them were Parry, Stuvik, Fuoco, Eiksson and Gilbert.

More detailed final results are the following: