Fornaroli grabs crucial F3 pole at Monza

The championship leader took his second pole of the season during a crucial qualifying session which could help decide the championship.

Finlay McSporran
Published: 16:13, 30th August 2024

This weekend marks the final round of the F3 championship in 2024 with 6 drivers still in contention for the title.

The Final Countdown

The six drivers still in title contention are:

Christian Mansell – The Aussie is currently 6th in the standings with 4 podiums and 1 pole position to his name however is 38 points down on leader Fornaroli meaning that he would need an almost perfect weekend to grab the title.
Dino Beganovic – The 2022 FRECA champion is in his 2nd F3 season and has 2 wins and 4 podiums to his name so far this year.
Arvid Lindblad – The Redbull junior has had a great first season in F3 with 4 wins to his name including two at Silverstone where he became the first driver to win both the sprint and feature race in F3 history at just 16 years old!
Luke Browning – The Williams driver came into this season having won the Macau grand prix in November, and has continued that momentum into this season with 2 feature race wins putting him 3rd in the standings just 6 points of the lead.
Gabrielle Mini – Just one point separates Mini from his rival Fornaroli which gives him a great chance at securing the title this weekend, with the highlight of his season being pole and Feature race win in Monaco.
Leonardo Fornaroli – Despite leading the championship, the Italian hasn’t won a race yet this year and has instead been on a remarkably consistent run off form, finishing in the points in 16 out of the 18 races so far.

Redbull junior Oliver Goethe was also in mathematical contention however has forgone his F3 duties to make the step up into F2 with MP motorsport, replacing F1 bound Franco Colapinto.

Qualifying Report

Fornaroli continues his consistent run off form with another pole to his name, earning him a further two points to extend his title lead.

Starting directly behind him will be 2nd in the championship Gabrielle Mini who qualified 3rd behind Irishman Alex Dunne who starts on the front row for Sundays feature race.

As for the other tile contenders, Browning qualified 13th, Lindblad 18th, Beganovic 10th and Christian Mansell 8th.

Tim Tramnitz qualified P12 meaning that he’ll start on reverse grid pole for tomorrows sprint race.

The slip stream played an important role in qualifying, meaning we saw drivers stack up behind one another in order t get a tow.

Championship Outlook

Fornaroli take 2 points for pole which puts Mansell out of title contention while a poor qualifying for Lindblad and Browning gives them a lot of work to do heading into the sprint race tomorrow.

Dino Beganovic will line up 3rd for the sprint race which could give him an opportunity to take some points away on Saturday.

But the real fight will be between Mini and Fornaroli who are separated by just 3 points and will no doubt be going wheel to wheel during the race as Monza has traditionally been a circuit with plenty of overtaking as we saw last year, which sets up what will hopefully be an epic fight to crown this years Formula 3 champion.

Full Qualifying Results (subject to change)

Pos	Driver	Team	Group A	Group B
1	Leonardo Fornaroli	Trident	1m38.287s
2	Alex Dunne	MP Motorsport		1m38.818s
3	Gabriele Mini	Prema	1m38.543s
4	Sami Meguetounif	Trident		1m38.860s
5	Santiago Ramos	Trident	1m38.704s
6	Sebastian Montoya	Campos Racing		1m38.899s
7	Joshua Dufek	AIX Racing	1m38.832s
8	Christian Mansell	ART Grand Prix		1m38.905s
9	Mari Boya	Campos Racing	1m38.872s
10	Dino Beganovic	Prema		1m38.956s
11	Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak	AIX Racing	1m39.115s
12	Tim Tramnitz	MP Motorsport		1m38.959s
13	Luke Browning	Hitech GP	1m39.124s
14	Joseph Loake	Rodin Motorsport		1m39.129s
15	Piotr Wisnicki	Rodin Motorsport	1m39.273s
16	Nikola Tsolov	ART Grand Prix		1m39.129s
17	Noel Leon	Van Amersfoort Racing	1m39.350s
18	Arvid Lindblad	Prema		1m39.219s
19	Max Esterson	Jenzer Motorsport	1m39.494s
20	Martinius Stenshorne	Hitech GP		1m39.273s
21	Cian Shields	Hitech GP	1m39.717s
22	Callum Voisin	Rodin Motorsport		1m39.294s
23	Noah Stromsted	Campos Racing	1m39.877s
24	Nikita Bedrin	AIX Racing		1m39.321s
25	Tommy Smith	Van Amersfoort Racing	1m40.216s
26	Charlie Wurz	Jenzer Motorsport		1m39.409s
27	Sophia Floersch	Van Amersfoort Racing		1m39.550s
28	Kacper Sztuka	MP Motorsport	No time
29	Matias Zagazeta	Jenzer Motorsport		2m45.165s
30	Laurens van Hoepen	ART Grand Prix	No time