Trident’s Luca Ghiotto claims fifth pole position of the season
What a performance: On home soil, Luca Ghiotto was eager to please his army of loyal supporters and he certainly did just that. The Series leader produced a stunning lap in wet conditions which was one second clear ahead of ART Grand Prix’s and Mercedes junior Esteban Ocon. Koiranen GP’s Matthew Parry clearly enjoyed the conditions as he posted his best qualifying result of his rookie campaign with third.
Following heavy rain and thunderstorms, the circuit was declared a wet track ahead of the thirty minute qualifying session for Round 6 of the 2015 GP3 Series season. Temperatures were much cooler than yesterday’s Free Practice with the drivers tentative in the early stages with the spray being an early factor.
Ghiotto took control early on before ART Grand Prix’s Marvin Kirchhöfer lapped a mere 0.004s faster. At the midway point, Kirchhöfer, Ghiotto and the Arden Motorsport duo of Emil Bernstorff and Kevin Ceccon completed the top four. As the track improved each lap, so did the times; with the German bettering his own personal best to dip into the 1m51’s. But Ghiotto responded with a laptime 0.077s faster.
The big question on everyone’s lips at the start of the session was whether the track would sufficiently dry enough for slick tyres to be put on. This was not the case, so the drivers returned to the pitlane to switch to their second set of Pirelli wet tyres. Ocon then headed the timesheet by almost half a second but Ghiotto was on a mission and flew into the 1m50’s, six tenths clear of the Frenchman. Parry jumped up to third as the clock ticked down.
Ghiotto improved yet again on his second flier to re-enforce his commanding pole position. At the chequered flag the top ten finished as: Ghiotto, Ocon, Parry, Ceccon, Bernstorff, Kirchhöfer, Alex Palou (Campos Racing), Antonio Fuoco (Carlin and Ferrari Driver Academy), Seb Morris (Status Grand Prix) and Jimmy Eriksson (Koiranen GP).
Catch the forty-minute long race at 17.20pm local time. The track provides plenty of passing opportunities so predictions can go out of the window here…!
