F3: Benavides beats Ugochukwu to pole position in Monza

AIX Racing’s Brad Benavides put in a stunning late effort in Qualifying to beat Ugo Ugochukwu to pole position for Sunday’s Formula 3 Feature race at Monza.

With Qualifying split into two groups, PREMA Racing’s Ugochukwu set the pace with a 1m 38.613 in the opening group, beating his Campos Racing rival Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak to the top spot by 0.013s.

Ugochukwu inherited P1 after Rafael Câmara, who was crowned Champion last time out in Hungary, had his only time of the session deleted for exceeding track limits, leaving him at the bottom of the grid.

As a result, Roman Bilinski finished third in Group A, ahead of MP Motorsport team mates Alessandro Giusti and Tim Tramnitz, as ART Grand Prix driver Laurens van Hoepen rounded out the top six.

In Group B and having seen multiple drivers sit at the top of the timesheets, Benavides completed a 1m 38.120 with his final lap of the day to beat PREMA’s Noel León to P1 by 0.262s.

It gives the American driver a second pole of the year, while Campos Racing’s Nikola Tsolov settled for third. DAMS Lucas Oil driver Matías Zagazeta followed in P4, with Tuukka Taponen fifth fastest for ART, as Hitech TGR’s Martinius Stenshorne rounded out the top six.

The sixth-placed driver from the slowest group will start from reverse grid pole in the Sprint Race, which means van Hoepen will go from P1 on Saturday, with Stenshorne set to join him on the front row.

The Sprint Race is set to start at 09:15 local time tomorrow morning, but until then you can read a full report from today’s FIA Formula 3 Qualifying session from Monza here.