Sargeant on pole as Piastri suffers more issues

American Logan Sargeant took a very important pole position for his championship hopes as his main FIA Formula 3 rival hit problems.

Sargeant set his lap right at the end of the session after a late red flag having led throughout to beat the field by three tenths.

That red flag was caused by Championship leader Oscar Piastri who continued to suffer with mechanical problems. The Australian stopped without setting a lap in practice and the same fate became him after the first runs of qualifying.

He had made it all the way to pit entry having set the second fastest time before the car came to a halt. He was able to get the car going again and made it back out with five minutes to go but he didn’t make it far, again stopping on track, this time at Brooklands on his out lap.

Piastri eventually dropped to eleventh but his aim will be to just finish after a disastrous Friday for the Renault Academy driver.

It looked like Liam Lawson was set for a disappointing day but the New Zealander put in a cracking lap at the very end to earn a front row start ahead of Jake Hughes who always races well, especially on home soil at Silverstone.

Frederik Vesti will start fourth as he too looks to capitalise on Piastri’s problems. He will have Bent Viscaal and Théo Pourchaire in his mirrors off the line after a pair of good results for the teenagers.

HWA’s sudden improvement in qualifying was backed up by Jack Doohan, who suffered a torrid time last week, qualifying in seventh but Enzo Fittipaldi was unlucky with timing to end the session thirteenth.

David Beckmann topped practice in the morning but eighth was the best he could do as he and teammate Lirim Zendeli sandwiched Ben Barnicoat at the bottom end of the top ten.

Barnicoat was extremely impressive having not raced in single-seaters for four years before last week’s British Grand Prix.

The biggest under-performance in qualifying was undoubtedly Richard Verschoor who will be on maximum attack for tomorrow’s race from twenty-seventh on the grid.