Trident’s Luca Ghiotto posts second consecutive pole in Austria
An action-packed qualifying session saw Italian Luca Ghiotto claim his third pole from four outings of his GP3 career. A threat of rain meant saw a very exciting thirty minutes with positions changing aplenty with ART Grand Prix’s and Mercedes backed Esteban Ocon in second, two tenths off the Trident star. Campos Racing’s Alex Palou finished third fastest.
A very cool and overcast morning greeted the GP3 paddock with rain predicted meaning anything could happen. The drivers were eager to set a flier early on before any rain fell, so this led to a frenetic start to the session. Carlin’s Mitchell Gilbert was first to lap in the 1m21’s with him and Marvin Kirchhöfer trading P1 laps for a short time.
Ghiotto shot to the head of the timings by four tenths from Arden International’s Emil Bernstorff and Palou as a few rain drops fell at the midway point of the session. The field returned to the pitlane for new Pirelli rubber whilst looking at the ominous clouds above and wondering if the heavens were about to open.
Kirchhöfer was fast out of the blocks and first to dip into the 1m19’s until his teammate Ocon bettered his time. Palou was also on the move and jumped to the top of the timesheet, but only for a few seconds as Ocon retaliated and improved on the Spaniard’s time by 0.069s.
Palou was not done and set a purple first sector and then green in sector two but unfortunately he ran wide in the final corner which resulted in a spin which sent him the wrong way down the start/line. The Campos Racing driver was able to continue but his best lap was ruined and the incident was covered with yellow flags with three minutes left on the clock.
There was still more action to come with Ghiotto on a mission to secure pole: the Italian got a clean lap together and clocked a time two tenths quicker than Ocon to make it two poles out of two for the 2015 campaign.
Palou will start from third which is his best qualifying in GP3 ahead of Kirchhöfer, Bernstorff, Matthew Parry (Koiranen GP), Sandy Stuvik (Status Grand Prix), Antonio Fuoco, Jimmy Eriksson and Gilbert.
