In just his second weekend with Trident, David Beckmann took his maiden GP3 Series pole position, coming out on top of an extremely close Qualifying session at Spa-Francorchamps, particularly at the front.
Beckmann, who started the year with Jenzer Motorsport before switching to Trident ahead of the race weekend at the Hungaroring at the end of July, had paced the sole free practice session earlier in the day and took top spot in Qualifying in Belgium with a lap of 2:04.335, 0.144 seconds clear of current championship leader Anthoine Hubert of ART Grand Prix.
Pedro Piquet will start third for Trident after setting a time of 2:04.529, which was 0.001 seconds faster than ART Grand Prix’s Jake Hughes, while also within 0.020 seconds of Piquet’s time were the final two ART Grand Prix drivers, Nikita Mazepin and Callum Ilott.
Had Simo Laaksonen not taken an excellent seventh place for Campos Racing, Trident and ART would have had a top eight lock-out, with the Finn finishing ahead of Trident duo Ryan Tveter and Giuliano Alesi, the latter having a time good enough for second deleted for track limits, while Arden International’s Joey Mawson completed the top ten.
Leonardo Pulcini, who currently sits third in the championship but remains without a victory, could only qualify twelfth on the grid for Campos Racing, just behind the leading Jenzer Motorsport machine of Tatiana Calderón with another Jenzer of Juan Manuel Correa thirteenth ahead of Gabriel Aubry, who comes to Spa-Francorchamps on the back of a LMP2 class win in the FIA World Endurance Championship at Silverstone last weekend for Jackie Chan DC Racing.
Series debutant Richard Verschoor, replacing FIA Formula 2 championship-bound Dorian Boccolacci, was fifteenth fastest, ahead of both of his MP Motorsport team-mates Niko Kari and Jannes Fittje, who will start seventeenth and twentieth respectively.
Spa-Francorchamps Qualifying Result
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