F3 Monza Qualifying: Slater takes pole in Trident front-row lockout

Written by Liam Ploetner

Feature Image Credit: Formula 3

After an exciting qualifying session in Monza, Freddie Slater secured his third pole position in four races for Trident, with teammate Matteo De Palo joining him on the front row for the main race.

Formula 3 returned to action following over a month off at Monza, the "Temple of Speed.” In practice, MP Motorsport’s Alessandro Giusti topped the session ahead of his MP teammates Tuukka Taponen and Mattia Colnaghi. Campos’ Ugo Ugochukwu had a collision with Trident’s Matteo De Palo, which he was deemed to be at blame for. The stewards gave the American a five-place grid penalty for both races. Louis Sharp left the Prema team, and has been replaced by Alex Powell, who is currently sixth in Eurocup-3.

Due to past controversies around slipstreaming at Monza, F3 splits the 30-car field into two groups of 15, with a 10 minute session for both.

Group One

The first group featured drivers with even numbers. This group had Ugochukwu, Trident’s Noah Strømsted and De Palo, MP’s Taponen, ART duo Taito Kato and Kanato Le, Van Amersfoort Racing (VAR)’s Hiyu Yamakoshi and Bruno del Pino, Rodin’s Brando Badoer, Prema’s Powell and José Garfias, Hitech’s Fionn McLaughlin, AIX’s Ricardo Escotto and Fernando Barrichello and DAMS’ Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi.

Going out on track early was Badoer, Bhirombhakdi, del Pino and Yamakoshi, however the quartet came back in after an installation lap.

For the 30 drivers, the 10 minutes of running meant they would get only one run, which would show which drivers were able to adapt to the racing conditions the best.

With four and a half minutes left, the entire field came out onto the circuit, with Fionn McLaughlin the last to come out. The Irishman elected to run in clean air rather than get a slipstream from the cars ahead.

After each driver set their first lap, McLaughlin led from Yamakoshi, del Pino, De Palo, Barrichello, Bhirombhakdi, Ugochukwu, Badoer, Powell and Garfias.

The second laps would be much quicker however. The time from McLaughlin was a 1:41.0, which was beaten by everyone. Taponen went top briefly, but was surpassed by Kato. Yamakoshi jumped him up to the top, with Le going third. Barrichello then moved ahead of Le, while home heroes Badoer and De Palo moved up to sixth and seventh. 

Several drivers were able to get a second lap in. Yamakoshi didn’t improve. Kato did, and was top for a moment before his teammate Le went ahead. De Palo managed to improve even further, getting a front row start for his home race by topping the session. The top six ended as De Palo, Le, Kato, Yamakoshi, Barrichello and Taponen.

McLaughlin’s gambit didn’t pay off, as he didn’t improve on his second lap and finished 14th. Several drivers in the top ten of the standings struggled. Badoer finished seventh, del Pino eighth, Strømsted ninth and Ugochukwu, one of the two main championship contenders, was only 10th. Due to the five-place grid penalty, the Campos driver would start 24th at best.

Group Two

Group two featured the other 15 drivers. This featured Campos duo Théophile  Naël and Ernesto Rivera, Trident’s Freddie Slater, MP’s Colnaghi and Giusti, ART’s Maciej Gładysz, VAR’s Enzo Deligny, Rodin’s Pedro Clerot and Cristian Ho, Prema’s James Wharton, Hitech’s Michael Shin and Jin Nakamura, AIX’s Yevan David and DAMS’ Nicola Lacorte and Gerrard Xie.

Unlike the first group, every driver went out on track from the get-go. Once more, they all came into the pits after doing an installation lap.

Colnaghi was under investigation for an unsafe release in the pits involving Naël, as was Gładysz.

Unlike the previous group, every driver waited until there was three minutes left to go out onto the track, with none of the field wanting to lead the pack’s slipstream. David was the first to bite the bullet, and thus led the field.

Giusti, Gładysz and Slater followed David to start their laps. Lacorte was the quickest in the first sector, marginally ahead of Nakamura, Colnaghi, Slater, Giusti, Wharton and Clerot.

David set the first time, but Giusti beat him comfortably. Gładysz went quicker than David, but Slater moved up to the top. A flurry of runs quickly followed, which saw Slater remain at the top. Slater’s time was quicker than De Palo, who led group one, meaning group two would start in the odd numbered positions. Following Slater was Lacorte, Rivera, Giusti, Colnaghi, Clerot, Xie, Wharton, Gładysz and David.

Shockingly, Naël did not get a time in due to a costly error at turn one, which gave Slater and Rivera an advantage coming into the main race.

The top 12 for Sunday's Feature Race would be Slater, De Palo, Lacorte, Le, Rivera, Kato, Giusti, Yamakoshi, Colnaghi, Barrichello, Clerot and Taponen.