QUALIFYING: Tsolov takes second consecutive pole for Campos Racing

Nikola Tsolov fired in a late lap to take his second Aramco Pole Position Award in a row.

The Campos Racing driver had been bettered by title contender Rafael Câmara going into the final attempts, but one last improvement put the Bulgarian back to P1. He finished ahead of Ugo Ugochukwu, who wound up second for PREMA Racing, with Câmara having to settle for third.

With the tyre preparation laps complete, TRIDENT set the early pace with Câmara going to the top on a 1:46.318, 0.2s ahead of teammate Noah Stromsted in second. Ugochukwu split them on his first attempt, going to within 0.023s of the Brazilian’s effort.

Tim Tramnitz delivered his first time to go top of the pile, but only briefly, as Tsolov followed to smash the time to beat with a 1:45.655, some 0.3s quicker than the MP driver in second.

Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak made it a Campos 1-3, slotting into third with his initial attempt.

Everyone returned to the pitlane for a fresh set of Hard tyres and returning to the track with just over 15 minutes of the session remaining. Tramnitz cut the gap down to 0.2s to Tsolov, while teammate Bruno del Pino slotted into third for the Dutch team on their next attempts.

Behind them though, Câmara delivered a 1:45.176 to surge to the top of the times, 0.479s quicker than Tsolov’s initial benchmark time.

Stromsted put in an improvement also to go third overall with just over 10 minutes to go, while Charlie Wurz followed a few minutes later to go fourth.

With five minutes left, the circuit got busy once again. Théophile Nael moved Van Amersfoort Racing up to second to cut the deficit to provisional pole sitter Câmara down to 0.3s.

Tramnitz followed that up to go second for MP, 0.296s behind the TRIDENT, but Tsolov returned to P1 with a 1:45.043 with less than half a minute to go.

Ugochukwu then went to P2 with his final attempt and just 0.023s off the top spot. Câmara had a poor middle sector on his last lap and could only manage third in the end.

Boya moved to fourth on his final turn ahead of Tramnitz and Wurz. Martinius Stenshorne followed in P7, with Laurens van Hoepen in eighth, Nael ninth and Noel León in 10th. Christian Ho wound up 11th for DAMS Lucas Oil, while Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak completed the top 12 positions and is set to line up on reverse grid pole for Saturday’s Sprint Race.

The Formula 3 Sprint Race is scheduled to get underway on Saturday at 09:15 local time.