The final qualifying sessions of the Formula 3 season were filled with drama. Here is everything that went down in session one and two.
Session 1:
Session 1 sets the grid for Saturday’s sprint and feature race. Kato took pole position at Madrid, claiming ART Grand Prix first F3 pole since Hungary 2024. He lead Clerot and Taponen.
The rest of the top 12 qualified as follows: Ugochukwu, Deligny, Nakamura, Rivera, Giusti, Del Pino, Powell, Nael and Wharton.
Championship leader qualified down in 17th due to many issues throughout the session. At the start, he was complaining about the throttle being stuck and the car not slowing under braking. He came in for new hard tires for the final laps, in which he was the only driver to do so as the rest were saving a set for the second qualifying session. When he went back out he kept complaining about the car saying that it is broken and “it’s crabbing”. He was bumped out of the top 12 and had one lap to make it up, but after a mistake in the lap he had to abort leaving him all the way down in 17th as others improved.
Badoer whacked the wall and damaged his suspension. He managed to get himself back into the pits where his mechanics frantically worked on his car to get him back out for session two, but he did not get back out for the rest of the first session.
Kato claimed pole beautifully. Every lap he did he was pushing to the absolute limit and getting incredibly close to the walls and track limits but never going over. It was a well earned pole for him and ART.
Session 2:
Session 2 sets the grid for Sunday’s feature race.
Taponen claimed pole for Sunday ahead of Ugochukwu and Clerot. The rest of the top 12 consists of Kato, Colnaghi, Deligny, Giusti, Slater, David, Rivera, Badoer and Powell.
Slater set a great lap after some quick adjustments to his car in the break between session 1 and 2. He went 2 tenths up on the rest of the field but he was still complaining about his car, insisting there is a problem somewhere.
Kato was still going very fast and briefly took provisional pole before being beaten by Ugochukwu, who was then topped by Clerot.
Slater was falling down the order and had to get a good lap in but unfortunately for him, he made two mistakes early on in his lap. He went airborne over the chicane and on the run up to turn 8 he locked up hard and flat spotted his tires. This flat spot would affect him for the rest of the session. After not being able to improve he headed back to the pits before the end of the session, aborting the rest of the day. Without doing a final lap, he found himself in 8th.
Clerot hit the wall on the final corner, completely smashing up his Rodin. Thankfully the driver is ok but the session timer had just gone down to 0:00 so anyone behind him could not set another lap time. Multiple drivers were improving but had to abort due to the double yellows.
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