Pepe Marti scores first Formula 3 pole at home in Spain
Pepe Martí scored his maiden FIA Formula 3 pole position at home for the Spanish Grand Prix.
Pepe Martí celebrates his maiden Formula 3 pole position in Spain. (Formula Motorsport Limited)
With less than a second separating the top 20 into the final runs, Martí set a lap of 1:27.587 around the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya to earn pole by two tenths of a second over Taylor Barnard and Franco Colapinto.
“It feels great, obviously to take my first pole at home is such a great feeling!” said the Campos driver.
“Especially to do it in the way we did, we only had one push in free practice so we were kind of going into the unknown in qualifying. To do like that, working our way up, we did a decent first run got into P1 in the second run and pulled a great lap at the end.”
With thirty cars on track, the session was tightly contested both on the timing sheet and in the battle for track position, something the Spaniard had to manage on his way to pole.
“Between me and my engineer on the radio, we were quite active during the warm-up and I actually didn't have traffic at all during the three laps but in the warm-up, it was quite terrible.”
“I think 30 of us were in one sector so slowing down was quite crazy and especially getting the position ready for the push lap.”
Pepe Martí on track for pole position in Barcelona. (Formula Motorsport Limited)
Martí has shown pace throughout the year, taking two sprint race victories and three top-ten finishes.
Teammates Hugh Barter and Christian Mansell were 15th and 16th respectively, with fellow Aussie Tommy Smith qualifying 22nd.
Zak O’Sullivan will start the sprint race from pole after qualifying twelfth, with Luke Browning alongside him on the front row.
The sprint race is underway at 6.30pm on Saturday (AEST), with the feature race at 5.55pm on Sunday.
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2023 FIA Formula 3 Championship - Round 5 Spain Qualifying
- Pepe Marti
- Taylor Barnard
- Franco Colapinto
- Dino Beganovic
- Paul Aron
- Gabriel Bortoleto
- Sebastian Montoya
- Mari Boya
- Leonardo Fornaroli
- Gregoire Saucy
- Luke Browning
- Zak O’Sullivan
- Oliver Goethe
- Nikita Bedrin
- Hugh Barter (AUS)
- Christian Mansell (AUS)
- Jonny Edgar
- Gabriele Mini
- Nikola Tsolov
- Caio Collet
- Kaylen Frederick
- Tommy Smith (AUS)
- Oliver Gray
- Rafael Villagomez
- Alejandro Garcia
- Piotr Wisnicki
- Sophia Floersch
- Roberto Faira
- Ido Coehn
- Hunter Yeany
