Mick Schumacher’s tremendous run of form continued on Saturday afternoon after the new championship leader secured pole positions for the final two races of the FIA European Formula 3 Championship weekend at the Red Bull Ring.
The Prema Theodore Racing driver started race one on Saturday morning from pole position and despite tricky conditions in Austria went on to take the victory. The win also ensured the German took over the lead of the championship from Daniel Ticktum, who could only finish eighth.
Schumacher will now have the opportunity on Sunday to extend his advantage after grabbing both pole positions in the second qualifying session, with his best time of 1:23.170 enough to deny team-mate Marcus Armstrong top spot by 0.087 seconds.
Robert Shwartzman, who has finished second to Schumacher in the past four races, will start third on the grid for Prema Theodore Racing, 0.120 seconds off the pole time, while Jüri Vips will join the Russian on the second row for Motopark, a further 0.060 seconds behind.
Jonathan Aberdein was fifth fastest, also for Motopark, with the South African finishing just ahead of Carlin duo Jehan Daruvala and Sacha Fenestraz, while Ticktum will be hoping to make gains on Sunday morning after qualifying eighth. He sits eighteen points behind Schumacher in the championship and cannot afford to lose too much ground to the German with only one more weekend of the season to come next month at the Hockenheimring.
Ralf Aron will start race two from ninth on the grid, his time only 0.459 seconds off the pace of Schumacher, while Nikita Troitskiy rounds out the top ten for Carlin, a further 0.017 seconds back on the Prema Theodore Racing driver. Guanyu Zhou set a time identical to the thousandth of a second to Troitskiy, but because the Russian set his time first, he will start tenth and the Chinese driver eleventh.
Schumacher’s second fastest time of the session of 1:23.225 was again enough for him to take pole position, this time for race three, with Shwartzman this time his closest challenger, 0.226 seconds back on the German, while Aberdein and Vips will share row two ahead of Armstrong and Aron.
Ticktum again will find himself with work to do from seventh on the grid, with Daruvala eighth ahead of Carlin’s Ferdinand Habsburg and Prema Theodore Racing’s Zhou.
Red Bull Ring Race 2 Qualifying Result
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Red Bull Ring Race 3 Qualifying Result
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