Marco Wittmann finished today’s second session in Zandvoort with the 3rd best time, while Alexander Sims maintained his strong form at Zandvoort to fend off ART team-mate Valterri Bottas’ challenge and secure pole position for the Formula 3 Masters. Sims had been quickest in both morning practice and first qualifying, and managed to improve his pole time to a 1m30.956s in the second qualifying session – 0.8 seconds faster than he had managed earlier.

Last year’s Masters winner Bottas repeated his second place from the opening session, but this time the gap between the ART duo increased from 0.008s to 0.156s.

Signature’s Edoardo Mortara dropped back from third in first qualifying to seventh in the final session, with his team-mate Marco Wittmann ending up as the ART pair’s leading challenger, ahead of Mucke’s Roberto Merhi and Carlos Munoz.

Fellow Mucke driver Nigel Melker put his practice crash thoroughly behind him to take sixth for his F3 debut, having raced in GP3 so far this year. Behind Mortara, Jean-Eric Vergne was the top British F3 runner in eighth for Carlin, just ahead of Hitech’s William Buller.

Qualifying two:

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap

 1.  Alexander Sims          ART          D/M  1m30.956s
 2.  Valtteri Bottas         ART          D/M  1m31.112s  + 0.156s
 3.  Marco Wittmann          Signature    D/V  1m31.463s  + 0.507s
 4.  Roberto Merhi           Mucke        D/M  1m31.641s  + 0.685s
 5.  Carlos Munoz            Mucke        D/M  1m31.667s  + 0.711s
 6.  Nigel Melker            Mucke        D/M  1m31.687s  + 0.731s
 7.  Edoardo Mortara         Signature    D/V  1m31.713s  + 0.757s
 8.  Jean-Eric Vergne        Carlin       D/V  1m31.765s  + 0.809s
 9.  William Buller          Hitech       D/V  1m31.780s  + 0.824s
10.  Jim Pla                 ART          D/M  1m31.812s  + 0.856s
11.  Antonio Felix da Costa  Motopark     D/V  1m31.969s  + 1.013s
12.  Daniel Juncadella       Prema        D/M  1m31.993s  + 1.037s
13.  Jazeman Jaafar          Carlin       D/V  1m32.070s  + 1.114s
14.  Stef Dusseldorp         Signature    D/V  1m32.086s  + 1.130s
15.  Rupert Svendsen-Cook    Carlin       D/V  1m32.125s  + 1.169s
16.  Gabriel Dias            Hitech       D/V  1m32.238s  + 1.282s
17.  Nicolas Marroc          Prema        D/M  1m32.430s  + 1.474s
18.  Lucas Foresti           Carlin       D/V  1m32.529s  + 1.573s
19.  Matias Laine            Motopark     D/V  1m32.569s  + 1.613s
20.  Hywel Lloyd             CF/Manor     D/M  1m32.777s  + 1.821s
21.  Rio Haryanto            CF/Manor     D/M  1m33.099s  + 2.143s
22.  Adderly Fong            Sino Vision  D/M  1m34.501s  + 3.545s
23.  Wayne Boyd              Sino Vision  D/M  1m34.798s  + 3.842s
24.  Laurens Vanthoor        Signature    D/V

Post in: Drivers, Marco Wittmann