With the Pau circuit in France being so tight and with so many entries for this season’s FIA European Formula 3 Championship, free practice was split into two sections, with odd and even numbered cars having two twenty-minute sessions each.
Group A was for the even numbered cars, with a wet track greeting the competitors, and it was Charles Leclerc who set the pace in a Van Amersfoort Racing 1-2 ahead of Arjun Maini, while Santino Ferrucci was third for Mücke Motorsport.
Alexander Albon was fourth in the first session for Signature, while Canadian Lance Stroll completed the top five in the leading Prema Powerteam entry ahead of team-mate Felix Rosenqvist and Championship leader Antonio Giovinazzi of Jagonya Ayam with Carlin.
For Group B, it was Jake Dennis who set the pace for Prema Powerteam, ahead of Jagonya Ayam with Carlin’s Gustavo Menezes, while Alessio Lorandi of Van Amersfoort Racing was third.
Maximilian Günther ended fourth for Mücke Motorsport, with the third Jagonya Ayam with Carlin machine of Ryan Tveter fifth ahead of George Russell’s Carlin.
The track was drier for the second session for Group A, with Maini ending the twenty-minute session on top ahead of Leclerc, with Giovinazzi third ahead of Albon and Rosenqvist.
Lorandi was the star of Group B, with the Italian more than a second clear of the rest of the field, and it meant Van Amersfoort Racing topped three of the four practice sessions. Markus Pommer of Motopark was second quickest, ahead of Dennis, while Menezes and Pietro Fittipaldi of Fortec Motorsports completed the top five.
Sergio Sette Camara and Mahaveer Raghunathan both crashed their Motopark machines during practice, while Carlin’s Callum Ilott, Double R Racing’s Nicolas Pohler, EuroInternational’s debutant Gustav Malja and Menezes also came to grief.
Only thirty-four drivers took to the track for practice, with Fortec Motorsports’ Zhi Cong Li withdrawing from the event as he has had to fly back to China to be with his ill father, while Nicolas Beer did not recover from his Hockenheim injuries in time to return to his EuroInternational drive.
Pau Free Practice 1 (Group A)
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Pau Free Practice 1 (Group B)
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Pau Free Practice 2 (Group A)
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Paul Free Practice 2 (Group B)
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