Marcus Armstrong secured his maiden FIA European Formula 3 Championship pole position at a wet Norisring, with the New Zealander taking advantage of being in the faster second group on a drying track.
Daniel Ticktum was fastest in the opening group with a time of 54.553s for Motopark, but Armstrong was able to beat that time by more than two seconds in the second group to take the pole position for Prema Theodore Racing.
There was more bad news for Ticktum as the Red Bull-backed Briton was handed a three-place grid penalty for running through a red light at the end of the pit lane during free practice earlier in the day, meaning he will start fifth on the grid for the first race of the weekend.
Joining Armstrong on the front row therefore is Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala, with the Indian missing out on top spot by just 0.095 seconds to the New Zealander, while row two sees Prema Theodore Racing duo Ralf Aron and Mick Schumacher line-up side by side.
Joining Ticktum on row three will be his Motopark team-mate Jonathan Aberdein, who had by far his best Qualifying performance of the season so far, while Nikita Troitskiy also impressed for Carlin to take seventh, ahead of Juri Vips of Motopark, Ferdinand Habsburg of Carlin, Robert Shwartzman of Prema Theodore Racing, Sacha Fenestraz of Carlin and Fabio Scherer of Motopark.
The two leaders of the championship, Enaam Ahmed and Guan Yu Zhou, had disappointing sessions and will share row seven. For Ahmed’s Hitech Grand Prix team it was a hugely underwhelming session, with Alex Palou and Ben Hingely twentieth and twenty-first respectively, with only Sebastian Fernandez of Motopark and Petru Florescu of Fortec Motorsports behind them.
Unfortunately, the Carlin team are a driver short this weekend, with Devlin DeFrancesco forced to skip the race in Germany due to dental surgery that required him to return to his Miami home.
Norisring Race 1 Qualifying Result
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*Three place grid penalty
