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Caio Collet secured his first Formula 3 pole in a wet-dry qualifying session around Spa-Francorchamps, the second pole in a row for his MP Motorsport team.
Starting on the front row with him for the Feature Race is Trident’s Zane Maloney and P3 went to Francesco Pizzi of Charouz Racing System.
The session began in the rain, but with a red flag suspending the proceedings with 20 minutes to go and the track quickly drying up, teams began to gamble with slick tyres for the remainder of qualifying.
It was championship contender Jak Crawford who brought out the red as he spun and dug himself into the new gravel traps around the Belgium track.
This resulted in the American tumbling down the order and will start at the back of the grid for both races this weekend.
His Prema team-mate Arthur Leclerc struggled with traffic on his last run, being held up by Trident driver Jonny Edgar and ending in 20th.
Rookie Ollie Bearman had a better session, showing potential for a first-row finish but fell to P8 in the closing stages of qualifying. He will start on the second row for Saturday’s Sprint.
Zak O’Sullivan clinched Sprint race pole as he finished in 12th after the last-minute flurry of lap times after the checked flag came out.
Both championship leaders, stuck on 104 points each, struggled at the end of qualifying.
Isack Hadjar, who leads the points standings, stopped on the main straight in sight of the chequered flag, his car denying him a chance to finish his flying lap to leave him 23rd fastest.
His main rival, ART Grand Prix’s Victor Martins, will start directly behind him in 24th.
Christian Mansell found himself up into 14th after the red flag but dropped four places after the current championship contenders finished up their laps.
The Australian will start both the Feature race and Saturday’s Sprint in 25th, his Charouz team-mate Pizzi will start from ninth in the reverse grid order on the Saturday.
Reece Ushijima topped the timing sheet for practice earlier in the day, more than a second ahead of the rest of the field but the Van Amersfoort driver struggled in the wet and only finished 16th for the feature race.
The Formula 3 Sprint Race will be live on Saturday from 18:45 AEST.
