 In a dramatic grouped qualifying, in a championship deciding final weekend, Leonardo Fornaroli takes two critical championship points as he claims pole position at Monza on Friday afternoon. Fornaroli was part of the first qualifying group and managed to take pole position as he set the best lap time in the entire session and has the best chance of clinching his first victory in Formula 3 in Sunday's feature race. The Italian Trident driver took pole as Alex Dunne topped the Group B, and would qualify second overall in the provisional classification. Gabriele Mini, who was second in Group A completes the top three. That makes the top two in the championship qualifying in the top three for the feature race on Sunday, in this championship-deciding weekend. How qualifying for the season finale of the 2024 Formula 3 Championship unfoldedFriday, August 30th, would see the final qualifying session of the season take place in a season finale that was set to see the drivers title go down to the very wire with six possible champions heading into the final round of the season. It was Mari Boya of Campos Racing who topped the morning practice session. Boya would be joined at Campos by Noah Stromsted making his debut in FIA Formula 3, replacing Oliver Goethe who had graduated to Formula 2 to drive for MP Motorsport. The qualifying would be split into two equal groups like it was in the Monaco round back in May. 15 cars would participate in each group based on their car number being odd or even. Whoever takes the fastest lap time out of both groups would take pole position for the feature race and the two championship points that come with it. Group AFirst up would be Group A, which would see the even numbers go first to set their lap times and to try and get themselves in the best possible positions on the grid. Competing in Group A would be:
The green light would come on at the end of the pit lane to signify the start of the session and the cars would head out onto the track for the final qualifying of the year. Max Esterson would be the first driver out on circuit for Jenzer Motorsport. Other drivers would take their time and would try and wait for the ideal track conditions which would arrive at the end of the 12 minutes. Eventually, the rest of the grid would form out onto the circuit with less than 10 minutes remaining. However, running would be suspended as a red flag would be brought out due to debris on track after drama, which saw a collision between drivers. Laurens Van Hoepen and Kacper Sztuka came together as they were jostling for track position on their build up to the flying laps. Both drivers would head back to the pits with Van Hoepen having a broken front wing and Sztuka would have damage to the rear of his car. Not a good look for either driver and this would be investigated after the session by the Stewards. The green light would come on at the end of the pit lane and with five minutes to go the session would be back underway. Kacper Sztuka would not take any further part but Laurens Van Hoepen would be able to head back out in his ART. This would round off a nightmare Friday for Sztuka. Out on track Browning would set off on his flying lap and would go fastest when he crossed the line. However, he would be beaten almost immediately by Boya, who topped practice earlier. With the amount of time coming down a lot of time, drivers could not afford to waste any. Joshua Dufek of AIX Racing would be the next to go fastest. Gabriele Mini second in the championship would sit fourth, Browning sat third in the championship would sit sixth while Fornaroli who leads the standings would sit seventh as the drivers would head onto their final runs. The chequered flag would soon be out and therefore the drivers would have to get their last laps right. Leonardo Fornaroli, the championship leader, went across the line with a hugely significant lap and went fastest with a 1:38.287, while Mini would move up into second place. However, a disaster for Browning would only see him finishing in seventh. Not what he would have wanted and a real tough one for the British driver, who will have a lot of work to do in both races if he was to become champion. Group BIn Group B, it would be the remaining 15 drivers who didn't participate in Group A, and who all have odd numbered cars. This would include the other three of the six championship challengers. Group B would consist of:
The green light would come on at the end of the pit lane for the second time in Monza and Group B would be underway with these 15 drivers aiming to take pole position away from championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli. The first half of the 12-minute session had gone by without any action and with seven minutes remaining the drivers headed onto the circuit to prepare for their laps in an attempt to try and get pole position for the final round of the season. Unfortunately for Christian Mansell, who is one of the challengers for the title, he had backed up the pack but unfortunately in comparison to the others, he had none of the cirtical tow the others would have had. In the lap times, it would be Alex Dunne of Ireland who would go top of the times with a great effort in his MP Motorsport car. Dunne would go fastest of Group B with a 1:38.818, which was just ahead of Sami Meguetounif of Trident who would sit second. The chequered flag would be out meaning only the drivers on current flying laps were able to set new personal bests and improve their best lap times. However, no one was able to beat Dunne's time and he would take pole for group B. However it wouldn't be pole position overall as Leonardo Fornaroli's time was better and therefore he would take pole position overall, for the final round of the season but more critically two points, which would extend his championship lead to three over Gabriele Mini. In the qualifying classification overall, Fornaroli would have pole position with Alex Dunne set to start alongside him in second for the feature race on Sunday. Gabriele Mini completes the top three, with Trident duo Sami Meguetounif fourth and Santiago Ramos completing the top five. Sebastian Montoya was sixth for Campos, ahead of AIX Racing's Joshua Dufek in seventh. Championship challenger Christian Mansell is eighth ahead of Mari Boya in ninth with Dino Beganovic completing the top 10. Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak was 11th with Tim Tramnitz starting the final sprint race from pole position in the final sprint race of the season as he qualified in 12th. Saturday morning will be when the final Formula 3 sprint race of 2024 takes place, in this important championship-defining weekend. 2024 FIA Formula 3 Championship: Round 10 - Monza qualifying provisional classification
 Brandon Whiteside
Writer - F1 Journal
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