Practice-
HiTech Pulse-Eight driver Luke Browning left it until the final moments of the session to top the Spa-Francorchamps Free Practice that started with rainy conditions before ending in the dry.
Browning completed a lap of 2:15.570 with his last lap on the slick tyres to finish 0.030s ahead of Van Amersfoort Racing’s Noel Leon, with ART Grand Prix driver Christian Mansell in third.
A wet Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps greeted the drivers with Browning the early pacestter on a 2:22.089, putting him 0.683s clear of his ART title rival Mansell in second.
As the drivers rounded the track, they began to find more grip and pace, but no one could quite match Browning’s time with VAR’s Leon going closest.
But the Hitech driver continued to be the benchmark, and later completed a lap of 2:21.310 to improve on his earlier effort, as AIX Racing’s Nikita Bedrin followed him across the line to finish 0.620s off the top time.
With 20 minutes left, the sun had started to come through and the track was drying out. The teams then started sending their drivers out for some exploratory laps on the slicks.
But it wasn’t until the final six minutes that a dry line began to appear with MP Motorsport’s Alexander Dunne using that to great effect to go fastest with 2:20.474.
Times continued to tumble as the track conditions improved with Sebastian Montoya, Santiago Ramos, Leon, Arvid Lindblad, Leonardo Fornaroli and Tramnitz all topping the timesheets within the span of five minutes.
The drivers running was then hampered by a yellow flag in the final sector following Ramos’ spin at the bus stop chicane, while his Trident teammate Sami Meguetounif would run wide at the same corner.
Qualifying-
Rodin Motorsport’s Callum Voisin took his first ever Formula 3 pole position after coming out on top in a frenetic Spa-Francorchamps qualifying session.
The British driver completed a lap of 2:04.321 to beat MP Motorsport’s Alexander Dunne to pole by 0.123s, with Trident’s Leonardo Fornaroli taking third place.
But after the first set of laps, it was the ART Grand Prix cars that set the pace, with Laurens van Hoepen completing the early benchmark time of 2:05.507 to lead Mansell by just 0.011s.
Hitech Pulse-Eight chose a different strategy by sending their drivers out early on the second set of tyres, giving them an empty track. However, it did not work for Luke Browning as he ran wide at Pouhon after losing the rear, leaving him down in P18.
His teammate Martinius Stenshorne was one of several to lose their first laps for exceeding track limits but on the latest attempt he went to P11, while Cian Shields jumped to P14.
The Hitech trio ducked into the pitlane while the rest of the field emerged on to the track with 10 minutes to go.
But then came the rest with first Sebastian Montoya, then Fornaroli and later Dunne going fastest before Voisin went to the top with a 2:04.321.
However, as the drivers prepared for their final laps there was huge queue heading into the final chicane, meaning that the like of Fornaroli and Leon did not get to the line in time to set off another attempt.
Some drivers did improve in the first sector, but they were so close to each other there were no improvements through the technical middle sector.
The full top 10 are- Pole: Voisin, P2: Dunne, P3: Fornaroli, P4: Montoya, P5: Leon, P6: Esterson, P7: Browning, P8: Meguetounif, P9: Tramnitz and P10: Ramos.
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