The FIA F3 European Championship moved from Pau to Spielberg in five days and the teams and drivers of the series were back on-track today at the Austrian venue. In a day started with the rain but finished with sunny skies, Prema Powerteam scored two outstanding pole positions. In qualifying 2, Lance Stroll set the fastest and the second fastest lap of the day to take the pole for race 2 and 3. The Canadian, currently leading the championship standings, will take-off from the second row with the fourth fastest lap time in race 1.

It was a bit of a shame for Maximilian Gunther, who had set the pole for race 1 but lost it for not respecting the yellow flags. He will still start from the front row in second place. Rookie Ralf Aron enjoyed a positive day while Nick Cassidy experienced some struggles but he’s looking forward to a prompt rebound in the races.

# 1 - Lance Stroll

“The first qualifying session has been really difficult and when the session ended I found myself fifth before moving up to fourth for the penalty issued to Eriksson. It was impossible to improve my lap in the final stages because first I was blocked and then I made a mistake so it hasn’t been a perfect session and being fourth is not too bad. The start of the second session, on the other hand, was a disaster. I was in traffic and it was difficult to find the space for a quick lap. I came back to the pits to try and wait for the right moment to get back on, but when I made it back to the track, I was in traffic again! I told my engineer we had to find a solution because putting together a decent laptime would have been impossible. So I slowed down a lot, created some space and with three minutes to go I set the two laptimes good for the poles. Fantastic!”.

# 2 - Nick Cassidy

“Unfortunate day. We have been really fast and the team is doing a great job, but circumstances outside our control mean it’s not possible to be fast enough. It’s a shame because the car is really good, I think my lap was really good and it’s not really our fault”.

# 16 - Ralf Aron

“In the first qualifying session the car improved a lot after I experienced some issues during practice. I thank the team for the great job they did. From that point on I have constantly been among the frontrunners but in the closing stages I lost position and I ended up tenth in qualifying 1. In qualifying 2 the speed was good, but at the first corner I kept losing time, a couple of tenths, and I don’t know why. If we consider that I still ended up eight, just 0.2s off the pole, we can clearly see that the potential was there”.

# 17 - Maximilian Gunther

“Qualy one was very good, so first position is always great even thought I got the pole taken away. I will start from the front row with the second fastest lap and that’s not bad at all. I thank the team for having given me a perfect car. In the second session I had great pace and I was sure I could have scored a good result, but the stewards deleted my best laptimes and I ended up just seventh”.

Canadians In BOLD