Home hero Pepe Martí has taken his first pole position in Formula 3, prevailing in a session without any incidents but was marked by the threat of rain.
With the threat of changeable conditions, cars were quick to head out of the pitlane and set a representative laptime, with drivers immediately tumbling over one another on the out lap.
Prema driver Paul Aron set the early pace, clocking a time of 1:28.369 after the first runs were done, followed by Trident driver Leonardo Fornaroli and Dino Beganovic in the number two Prema.
Despite the busy traffic, all drivers managed to set a representative lap time in the first run and stay ahead of the possible rain before running into the pits for necessary adjustments and a change of tyres.
All drivers hurried out of the pitlane for another run, with lap times once again going down and positions changing hands all the time.
MP Motorsport’s Franco Colapinto was the first to set the pace, with his lap slightly interrupted by traffic in the closing stages, but it was last week’s Sprint winner Pepe Martí who took top position, closely followed by Hitech’s Sebastian Montoya and Jenzer’s Taylor Barnard.
The weather remained clear, allowing the drivers a third and final run of pushlaps, while Van Amersfoort Racing’s Caio Collet was the only driver to remain in the pit lane.
Aron briefly found himself on provisional pole, but was quickly beaten to it by first his teammate and then by home hero Martí.
Fellow Spaniard Mari Boya also found the top ten, launching himself into ninth as the runs were all clean with no incidents.
Barnard, who had looked quick in the practice session earlier in the day followed up on that, driving himself to the front row and will be starting the Feature Race from second on Sunday.
Colapinto crossed the line in third, followed by the Prema duo of Beganovic and Aron in fourth and fifth, respectively.
Championship leader Gabriel Bortoleto made it to sixth, followed by Montoya, Boya, Fornaroli and Saucy in tenth.
Browing will start the Sprint Race from the front row in second, while Zak O’Sullivan will be starting from pole.
After last week’s heroics in Monaco, Gabriele Miní was unable to capitalize on his momentum, with a deleted laptime dropping him down to P18.
The Sprint Race is set to start tomorrow at 10:30, while the Feature Race is scheduled for 09:55 on Sunday.
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