Motopark duo Fabio Scherer and Jüri Vips each took a pole position in the second FIA European Formula 3 Championship Qualifying session of the day at Silverstone.
Scherer will start from pole position for race two on Saturday, his first top spot in his rookie campaign, while Vips will also lead the field to the starting grid for the first time for Sunday’s finale.
The grid for race two was set by the driver’s quickest time in the twenty-minute session, and it was Scherer’s 1:50.460 that was enough to take top spot, although behind him it was a very close run thing, with hundredths and sometimes just thousandths of a second separating drivers.
Mick Schumacher will join Scherer on the front row for Prema Theodore Racing, with the German missing out on his second pole of the season by just 0.049 seconds. But he ended just 0.001 seconds clear of Vips, who was forced to settle for third on the grid, with the Estonian being joined on row two by Enaam Ahmed of Hitech Bullfrog GP, who ended just 0.077 seconds off pole position himself!
Jonathan Aberdein’s ever-improving campaign continued with the South African putting his Motopark machine into fifth, just ahead of race one polesitter Sacha Fenestraz of Carlin, while championship rivals Marcus Armstrong of Prema and Daniel Ticktum of Motopark will share row four, ahead of Prema team-mates Guan Yu Zhou and Robert Shwartzman.
The top twenty drivers were all within one second of the pole time, and this included debutant Charles Leong, who continued to find his feet in the championship to qualify twentieth of the twenty-four drivers for Hitech.
The grid for race three was set by the second fastest times of the session, and this allowed Vips the opportunity to take top spot for the first time. He will be joined on the front row by team-mate Aberdein as Scherer’s second-best time was only good enough to see him qualify thirteenth!
Fenestraz, the only Carlin driver inside the top fourteen for either race two or three, will start third for race three ahead of Schumacher, with Armstrong and Ahmed sharing row three ahead of Ticktum and Zhou.
Shwartzman will start the final race of the weekend from ninth on the grid, while Alex Palou will be disappointed with his performance in the session, with tenth in race three following eleventh in race two. That being said, his best time was just over four-tenths of a second off the pole time, proving just how close and competitive the European Formula 3 Championship is again in 2018.
Silverstone Race 2 Qualifying Result
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Silverstone Race 3 Qualifying Result
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