GP3: Marvin Kirchhofer takes the pole in Silverstone

With a time of 1:47.040, Marvin Kirchhofer won the pole position in Silverstone. Unlike the practice session which was red flagged, the qualifying session was much calmer with no spins and a brief yellow flag at the very end. The thirty-minute long session began at 8:45AM with drivers warming up their super hard Pirelli tires that are to be used for the first time this weekend. Marvin Kirchhofer made the first representative lap time with 1:49.708 and then improved by lapping Silverstone Circuit in 1:48.453. GP3 championship leader Luca Ghiotto was on second with 1:48.657, but as the drivers were pushing the tempo up, he dropped to seventh while Eriksson went up to provisional pole with 1:48.165.

Ghiotto soon returned to the top with 1:47.955, leaving Eriksson on second. With around 13 minutes to go, cars went to the pits where teams prepared the cars for the final runs. Emil Bernstorff went up to provisional pole by doing 1:47.873, but Australian driver Mitchell Gilbert set the time of 1:47.664, topping the chart with five minutes to go. In the very next lap, Bernstorff reutrned to the lead with 1:47.275, but was immediately topped by Kirchhofer who did the lap in 1:47.194. Alex Palou was the runner up with two minutes to go and was followed by Matthew Parry. Ghiotto was making great progress on the track, but a time that could have been the fastest didn’t count which left Ghiotto on tenth. In the final seconds, Marvin Kirchhofer lapped Silverstone in 1:47.040, winning the pole position. He was closely followed by Bernstorff, Palou, Parry and Eriksson in top five. Ghiotto managed to improve his score and get to sixth, in front of Fong, Ocon, Gilbert, Ceccon and Boschung. The complete list is the following: