F3 Britain: O'Sullivan takes maiden series pole for home race

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The Carlin driver set a 1m44.597s in his best qualifying so far this season in front of his home crowd, having previously had a best start of eighth.

He sat tenth place in the first half of the session, but on the final runs took pole by 0.03s from Prema Racing’s Arthur Leclerc, while Zane Maloney will line up third for Trident, just 0.014s behind Leclerc.

Team boss Trevor Carlin told Motorsport.com earlier this week that the team had found a breakthrough after struggling in the series for several seasons, which paid off for O’Sullivan who was named Autosport’s BRDC Young Driver of the Year for 2021.

With the track having dried significantly since a damp Formula 1 free practice one session earlier in the day, Ollie Bearman was first to set a flying lap for Prema, with a 1m45.107s putting him 0.2s ahead of Kush Maini in second.

The MP Motorsport driver, who also topped practice earlier on Friday, then improved onto a 1m44.963s before Bearman briefly reclaimed the top spot, but had his time deleted for track limits.

Leclerc put himself into third with a 1m45.221s before the times tumbled as Maloney and Jonny Edgar, having returned this weekend after a period away from racing following a diagnosis with Crohn’s Disease, knocked him into fifth.

The field pitted around the halfway mark, with just one second separating the top 15 as Maini led from Bearman and Maloney.

As they returned to the circuit, the lead quickly changed hands, with Caio Collet briefly heading the standings for MP Motorsport before O’Sullivan took the top spot.

Collet will start fourth for Sunday’s race, with Prema’s Jak Crawford and Bearman rounding off the top six, marking a change in the qualifying fortunes of the Italian outfit so far this year.

Roman Stanek, who sits second in the championship, will start eighth, while frontrunner Victor Martins starts 11th for ART Grand Prix.

Despite his early pace, Maini will line up tenth, putting him on reverse-grid pole for Saturday’s sprint race, while Isack Hadjar starts second for Hitech.

Edgar also struggled to improve in the second half of the session, and will start 14th.

Cla	Driver	Team	Laps	Time	Gap
1	Zak O'Sullivan	Carlin	12	1'44.597
2	Arthur Leclerc	Prema Powerteam	11	1'44.624	0.027
3	Zane Maloney	Trident	12	1'44.638	0.041
4	Caio Collet	MP Motorsport	12	1'44.783	0.186
5	Jak Crawford	Prema Powerteam	12	1'44.805	0.208
6	Oliver Bearman	Prema Powerteam	11	1'44.863	0.266
7	Kaylen Frederick	HitechGP	12	1'44.876	0.279
8	Roman Staněk	Trident	12	1'44.920	0.323
9	Isack Hadjar	HitechGP	12	1'44.922	0.325
10	Kush Maini	MP Motorsport	12	1'44.930	0.333
11	Victor Martins	ART Grand Prix	13	1'44.958	0.361
12	Reece Ushijima	Van Amersfoort Racing	11	1'45.012	0.415
13	David Vidales	Campos Racing	11	1'45.028	0.431
14	Jonny Edgar	Trident	13	1'45.048	0.451
15	Gregoire Saucy	ART Grand Prix	13	1'45.203	0.606
16	Juan Manuel Correa	ART Grand Prix	13	1'45.240	0.643
17	Franco Colapinto	Van Amersfoort Racing	11	1'45.300	0.703
18	Hunter Yeany	Campos Racing	13	1'45.568	0.971
19	Francesco Pizzi	Charouz Racing System	11	1'45.576	0.979
20	Ido Cohen	Jenzer Motorsport	12	1'45.718	1.121
21	William Alatalo	Jenzer Motorsport	12	1'45.810	1.213
22	Nazim Azman	HitechGP	12	1'45.815	1.218
23	Brad Benavides	Carlin	12	1'45.855	1.258
24	Federico Malvestiti	Jenzer Motorsport	11	1'45.919	1.322
25	Rafael Villagomez	Van Amersfoort Racing	11	1'45.934	1.337
26	Enzo Trulli	Carlin	11	1'45.988	1.391
27	Filip Ugran	MP Motorsport	13	1'46.051	1.454
28	Zdenek Chovanec	Charouz Racing System	11	1'47.713	3.116
29	László Tóth	Charouz Racing System	13	1'48.038	3.441
30	Pepe Martí	Campos Racing	12	2'09.684	25.087
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