Bahrain – Colapinto takes first pole, ART Grand Prix well placed

Van Amersfoort Racing couldn’t have asked for better! For his return to F3, the Dutch team was spoiled by Franco Colapinto. The Argentinian actually took pole position in Bahrain where he did not start as one of the main contenders.

At the forefront were Prema drivers like Oliver Bearman, recently crowned in Italian and German F4, Arthur Leclerc and Jak Crawford, or even representatives of Trident, the reigning champion team. But it was Franco Colapinto who stole the show on the Sakhir circuit. 

Taking full advantage of the new rule prohibiting any refueling between runs, the Argentinian, absent from the Top 22 after his first attempts, took the rest of the field by surprise. He was thus able to climb to the top of the timesheet with a lap of 1'46"249, narrowly beating pole position from Roman Stanek (Trident) and Kush Maini (MP Motorsport), who respectively fell behind of 65 and 73 thousandths. The Indian then received a penalty and will have to start from the pit lane in both races this weekend, for missing the weigh-in. 

This therefore allowed the ART Grand Prix group shot, very well placed, to gain a position. The French team has its three drivers in 3rd, 4th and 5th place since the reigning FRECA champion Grégoire Saucy beat Victor Martins and Juan Manuel Correa. Second Frenchman entered in F3 with Victor Martins, Isack Hadjar (Hitech GP ) had a decent session with the 8th fastest time. Enough to put himself in a good position for the Sprint Race where he will start from 5th place due to the inverted grid.

Painful departure for Prema

If Franco Colapinto broke the screen, Prema for his part did not experience the same success. Yet accustomed to playing the leading roles, the Italian team missed out on its session. It was Oliver Bearman, the least experienced of the Prema drivers, who saved the furniture for the Italian structure with a 10th place. The two repeaters Arthur Leclerc and Jak Crawford could not do better than 14th and 21st. Note that the latter seems to have been the victim of mechanical problems since his team spent a few minutes working on his car in the pit lane.

Twelfth under the checkerboard, Zak O’Sullivan (Carlin) thought he had done the right thing by obtaining pole for the Sprint Race ahead of Oliver Bearman and David Vidales (Campos). But the penalty imposed on Maini promotes Caio Collet, initially 13th, to the lead for Saturday.