QUALIFYING: Doohan scores maiden pole in wet conditions at Spa

Jack Doohan got the job done early in Qualifying, setting the quickest laptime of the session inside of the opening five minutes on a slippery Spa circuit to take his first pole in Formula 3. In second and third, Victor Martins and Alex Smolyar were nearly two tenths off the Trident racer’s lap of 2:21.953.

Doohan had said ahead of the session that he believed Championship leader Dennis Hauger was still catchable and the Australian now has an excellent opportunity to make up significant ground with the PREMA driver qualifying outside of the top 12 for the first time this season.

The rain had restarted since the end of Free Practice and the grid were greeted by a misty track surface and just 16-degree track temperatures.

Doohan has finished inside of the top 10 in every Qualifying session so far this season and went about continuing that run with the quickest time of the first runs, setting the marker at 2:21.953. His teammate, Clément Novalak, had gone fastest in the opening session and propped up Doohan in second place, albeit nearly nine-tenths off.

With spray shooting from the back of his ART Grand Prix, Frederik Vesti was forced to abandon a fast run after a wide moment and settled for seventh at the halfway point. Logan Sargeant managed to keep it together and improved to second before heading into the pits, proving that a lap was possible in the tricky conditions.

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With the track starting to dry, MP Motorsport headed out and were straight on the pace, Martins and Caio Collet leaping to second and third, with just a tenth between them.

Championship leader Hauger was struggling back in 12th place behind his PREMA teammate, Arthur Leclerc. Juan Manuel Correa was another who had yet to get to grips with the circuit, the ART Grand Prix driver forced into the pits for a fix-up after scraping the wall.

While a fair amount of the circuit had dried, Sector 2 remained wet and was proving difficult for the field to manage. Smolyar was able to improve to third, but the slippery second sector meant that no one could trouble Doohan at the top of the timesheet.

With just a minute left on the clock, a red flag brought the session to an early end after Tijmen Van der Helm lost control of his MP Motorsport and ended up in the wall in Sector 3. That meant that Martins retained P2, providing the Frenchman with a great chance to score points for the first time in five races.

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Smolyar and Collet retained third and fourth with Sargeant and Novalak dropping to fifth and sixth. Vesti managed to maintain his early position and kept seventh, with David Schumacher getting eighth.

Johnathan Hoggard was one of very few drivers to improve in the closing stages, qualifying ninth ahead of Roman Stanek.

Jak Crawford and Lorenzo Colombo stole 11th and 12th off Leclerc and Hauger, bumping the PREMA duo down to 13th and 14th, outside of the reverse grid positions. With Olli Caldwell in 18th, PREMA have failed to qualify inside of the top 10 for the first time in Formula 3.

Colombo will start ahead of Crawford in Saturday’s reverse grid Race 1, which takes place at 10.05am local time.