Official F1 Journal Formula 3 Round Up- Monza

The Final race of the FIA Formula 3 Championship and Bortoleto comes into the weekend able to win the championship in Qualifying if his closest Championship rival Paul Aron doesn't get Pole today and take to 2 points your get for Pole, also the fight for 2nd is very tight with just 19 points between 2nd and 7th with 37 points available this weekend.

Practice 

As the cars made their way out on to a dry track, it was Olli Gray who was the first man to top the times after everyone's first runs with a 1.41.612, just half a tenth in front of Rodin-Carlin  team mate Cohen. Joshua Dufek on his debut for Campos at Monza topped the  times until the clock hit 30 minutes to go and the search for the fastest lap & best slipstream began, causing an entertaining type of traffic with drivers not wanting to lead the pack around as punching a hole in the air for everyone behind, gives away a big speed advantage, as you not only cut a hole in the air you are essentially pulling them along behind you at the same time, so either way it doesn't pay to be in the lead of the pack in  Monza qualifying. Fonaroli made this work the best by setting the best time before Bedrin brought out the first of 2 Red Flags in this session.
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The cars got underway with 16 minutes on the clock but the traffic from all 30 cars on track made getting a lap of Monza right and fast much much harder than it should have been.
 Goethe, Aron and Mini managed to hook a fast laps when it counted. Just in time for the 2nd Red flag to be brought out by Boya who spun into the barrier at the last corner ( turn 11) with just 6 minutes to go. The Race Director chose not to restart the session and Goethe took the top spot, followed by the only man who could take the championship from Bortoleto(ended the session in 6th), Paul Aron. But to do so Aron needs to score all of the 37 points available at Monza . It sounds impossible but we have to remember 1/ this is F3 & 2 this is Monza!!!

Qualifying 

Qualifying started and other than making a sighter lap to help set the car up none of the teams or drivers were in a rush to get out and it wasn't until 23 minutes to go that we saw any lap times go up on the board but sadly that wasn't to be for most of the field as Cohen brought out the red flag after a spin in traffic on his out lap. 
When they got underway again they had 20 minutes on the clock and time was running out for Aron and his chances to keep the championship fight going! 
Caio Collet set the fastest time of those who got over the line before the red flag flew again when Dufek on full send during his first Qualifying session took to much curb through turn 8 and ended in the gravel, unable to continue. Again the grid returned to the pitlane.
The light went green with just 11 minutes to go and despite that the only car on track and to set a lap was Goethe, he set the fastest time of qualifying out of sync with the other cars which prove a mistake by the rest of the grid because while making a 2nd run and trying to improve his time, the trident man hit the wall HARD at the 2nd Lesmo corner and brought out the 3rd and final Red flag of the Qualigying session and with just 6 minutes to go the Race Director chose to not restart. Meaning with Goethe on Pole and getting the extra points for Pole position, that meant Aron in 2nd hadn't done enough to keep the championship going to the Sprint Race tomorrow and Bortoleto was the Formula 3 Champion 2023!!!!!!

© Fia Formula 3 

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Qualifying Result 

91 GOE     2 ARO
3 MIN      4 SAU
5 FOR     6 BOR
7 BAR     8 COL
​9 BEG    10 BRO 
11 MON  12 SMI
13 CCO  14 FRE
15 BOY   16 BED
17 OSU   18 TSO
19 EDG   20 MAN
21 VIL      22 DUF
23 FLO    24 MAR
25 COH   26 GRA
27 SIM     28 SAI
29 FAR    30 GAR

Joanna Blackmore 
​Writer @ F1 Journal