Austria F3: Hauger on pole after Collet laptime deleted

MP Motorsport driver Collet was found to have exceeded track limits at Turn 10, which promotes championship leader Hauger to top spot for Sunday's feature race.

Frederik Vesti (ART Grand Prix) moves to second as a result, just 0.028s behind Prema driver Hauger, with Vesti's teammate Alexander Smolyar third.

The top 12 is reversed for tomorrow’s sprint race, which puts Logan Sargeant (Charouz) on pole for that race. Matteo Nannini (HWA Racelab) will start in second, with MP Motorsport’s Victor Martins in third.

The session at the Red Bull Ring was marred by heavy traffic that ruined many drivers’ laps. There will be an investigation after drivers were weaving on track, as well as slowing between Turn 9 and Turn 10.

Clement Novalak (Trident) was out on track first, leading the 30-car procession onto the circuit.

There were several near-misses as the whole field crammed into the short circuit, bunching up on the warm-up lap in an attempt to create a gap for a clean lap and warm the tyres.

Hitech Grand Prix driver Roman Stanek was the first to set a representative fast lap, with a 1m21.082, before being quickly beaten by a succession of other drivers.

As the times tumbled, Vesti topped the timesheet, setting a 1m20.153 – just four-hundredths ahead of second placed Sargeant.

By the halfway mark, the top 22 times were within seven-tenths of each other, before drivers dived into the pits for fresh tyres and another chance at a quicker time.

As they exited the pitlane, Enzo Fittipaldi made contact with another car, with the Charouz driver under investigation for an unsafe release.

The session was then red-flagged after Carlin driver Ido Cohen - one of many who had been shown the black and white flag for breaching track limits - stopped on the side of the track near the start-finish line, before restarting several minutes later.

With just three minutes to go, the times began tumbling, with several drivers swapping places to take the lead.

Qualifying results (before Collet's lap deletion)

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Caio Collet	MP Motorsport	1'19.697
2	Dennis Hauger	Prema Powerteam	1'19.726	0.029
3	Frederik Vesti	ART Grand Prix	1'19.754	0.057
4	Alexander Smolyar	ART Grand Prix	1'19.801	0.104
5	Jak Crawford	HitechGP	1'19.817	0.120
6	Clement Novalak	Trident	1'19.829	0.132
7	Jack Doohan	Trident	1'19.887	0.190
8	Olli Caldwell	Prema Powerteam	1'19.900	0.203
9	Arthur Leclerc	Prema Powerteam	1'19.975	0.278
10	Victor Martins	MP Motorsport	1'20.003	0.306
11	Matteo Nannini	HWA AG	1'20.070	0.373
12	Logan Sargeant	Charouz Racing System	1'20.101	0.404
13	Calan Williams	Jenzer Motorsport	1'20.112	0.415
14	David Schumacher	Trident	1'20.148	0.451
15	Enzo Fittipaldi	Charouz Racing System	1'20.188	0.491
16	Kaylen Frederick	Carlin	1'20.235	0.538
17	Roman Staněk	HitechGP	1'20.318	0.621
18	Oliver Rasmussen	HWA AG	1'20.326	0.629
19	Jonny Edgar	Carlin	1'20.444	0.747
20	Ayumu Iwasa	HitechGP	1'20.463	0.766
21	Lorenzo Colombo	Campos Racing	1'20.634	0.937
22	Tijmen van	MP Motorsport	1'20.672	0.975
23	Amaury Cordeel	Campos Racing	1'20.680	0.983
24	Juan Manuel Correa	ART Grand Prix	1'20.690	0.993
25	Reshad de	Charouz Racing System	1'20.762	1.065
26	Rafael Villagómez	HWA AG	1'20.943	1.246
27	Johnathan Hoggard	Jenzer Motorsport	1'21.078	1.381
28	László Tóth	Campos Racing	1'21.292	1.595
29	Filip Ugran	Jenzer Motorsport	1'21.451	1.754
30	Ido Cohen	Carlin	1'21.536	1.839
View full results