Monza GP3: Leclerc denies Arden 1-2 with late flyer

Leclerc had the early lead of the session and while teammate Nyck de Vries took over after the second set of flying laps, Jake Dennis went two hundredths quicker before the end of the first stint.

Once the second part of the session kicked off, Jack Aitken took the lead with the help of teammate Dennis' slipstream.

The duo then immediately went for another go but the red flag was brought out with three minutes left as Giuliano Alesi stopped on the main straight.

The session was restarted, with the field having time for onlu one lap.

Dennis recovered from missing out on an improvement before the red flag by beating Aitken, who made a mistake on his lap, by just 0.003s.

However, Leclerc went even quicker, going clear of the Arden duo by almost two tenths.

Alex Albon will start fourth, having narrowly finished ahead a train of cars.

DAMS duo Jake Hughes and Kevin Jorg were just 0.003s and 0.025s slower in fifth and sixth.

Nirei Fukuzumi and local driver Antonio Fuoco were only a further six and seven thousandths slower as Nyck de Vries had to settle for ninth, despite being only 0.038s behind Albon.

Ralph Boschung, who returned to the series after skipping Spa, completed the top 10.

Qualifying results

Pos.	#	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	1	Charles Leclerc	ART Grand Prix	1'38.546
2	9	Jake Dennis	Arden International	1'38.712	0.166
3	11	Jack Aitken	Arden International	1'38.729	0.183
4	3	Alexander Albon	ART Grand Prix	1'38.847	0.301
5	27	Jake Hughes	DAMS	1'38.850	0.304
6	28	Kevin Joerg	DAMS	1'38.872	0.326
7	2	Nirei Fukuzumi	ART Grand Prix	1'38.878	0.332
8	5	Antonio Fuoco	Trident	1'38.879	0.333
9	4	Nyck de Vries	ART Grand Prix	1'38.885	0.339
10	17	Ralph Boschung	Koiranen GP	1'38.945	0.399
11	22	Alex Palou	Campos Racing	1'39.045	0.499
12	8	Sandy Stuvik	Trident	1'39.084	0.538
13	16	Matevos Isaakyan	Koiranen GP	1'39.255	0.709
14	26	Santino Ferrucci	DAMS	1'39.268	0.722
15	10	Tatiana Calderon	Arden International	1'39.286	0.740
16	7	Giuliano Alesi	Trident	1'39.377	0.831
17	14	Matt Parry	Koiranen GP	1'39.430	0.884
18	23	Steijn Schothorst	Campos Racing	1'39.439	0.893
19	20	Arjun Maini	Jenzer Motorsport	1'39.535	0.989
20	18	Akash Nandy	Jenzer Motorsport	1'39.558	1.012
21	6	Artur Janosz	Trident	1'39.869	1.323
22	24	Konstantin Tereshchenko	Campos Racing	1'40.216	1.670