As the first day back for the Formula 1 feeder series ends, fans of the young Frenchman, Théo Pourchaire, seem to be in for a treat. He gapped the field by three-quarters of a second to take a dominant pole in the first qualifying session of the year ahead of his teammate Victor Martins making it an all ART GP start for Sunday’s Feature Race.
The session started with Ralph Boschung setting the screens alight, going purple in the first two sectors, and coming to the line to set the pace with a 1:42.010 two-tenths quicker than anyone else at the time. That was until Theo Pourchaire completed his first flying lap with three purple sectors and breaking into the 1:41s and going straight to P1.
The half a second gap to the ART driver seemed to be impossible to match with the first run of push laps ending with the gap still over half a second. The DAMS rookie, Arthur Leclerc, moved himself up into third briefly still 0.6s off the provisional pole time. He was quickly displaced by Pourchaire’s teammate Martins, the current Formula 3 Champion displaying his pace.
Jack Doohan decided to run in the gap whilst the track was clear and subsequently moving himself up into 4th place after locking up going into turn 10, still over half a second behind Pourchaire’s provisional pole time.
The second runs showed promise with green sectors from most drivers and the Campos driver, Kush Maini, moved himself up into the top 2 but was quickly displaced by Verschoor. Whilst the other 20 drivers on track at the time were improving and trying to beat Pourchaire’s provisional pole time, so was he.
Pourchaire finished his second flying lap with another three purple sectors and went a further 0.6s faster. A whole nine-tenths clear of the rest of the field! At this point, it was clear that no one would be able to challenge the ART driver who seemed to be in a class of his own.
There were some improvements across the field, Pourchaire’s teammate moved alongside him in the timings to finish his first Formula 2 qualifying in P2. Making it an all ART Grand Prix line-up on Sunday. There were under four-tenths between the Formula 3 Champ and Boschung, who will start the Sprint tomorrow in pole position alongside Roman Stanek.
The Top 10 classifications:
1. Pourchaire (1:40.903)
2. Martins (+0.751)
3. Verschoor (+0.900)
4. Hauger (+0.928)
5. Vesti (+0.994)
6. Maini (+1.024)
7. Iwasa (+1.031)
8. Leclerc (+1.070)
9. Stanek (+1.085)
10. Boschung (+1.107)
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