ART Grand Prix’s Anthoine Hubert has claimed a maiden GP3 pole position at Silverstone to cut team-mate Callum Ilott’s points lead to two.
The Renault-affiliated driver, one of three to lead the drivers’ standings in 2018 so far, set a time of 1m47.033s on his penultimate lap of the 30-minute session.
Hubert set a slower effort at the chequered flag by 0.397 seconds and held on despite improvements from Force India F1 tester team-mate Nikita Mazepin and Ferrari academy racer Giuliano Alesi.
He is the fourth different driver to take the fastest time in qualifying in 2018, with four in four events for the first time since 2016, and led the timesheets three times throughout the session to better his previous best grid position of second at the same track 12 months’ ago.
After going temporarily quickest before Hubert with three minutes remaining, Mazepin ended just 0.102s adrift to claim a second front-row start of the campaign ahead of Alesi, who also equalled his season-best performance.
Ferrari-backed Ilott, who held the top spot before the Russian, improved by a tenth on his final run but was knocked down from third by his Scuderia academy colleague.
Trident duo Ryan Tveter and Alessio Lorandi finished fifth and sixth.
MP’s Dorian Boccolacci was seventh above ART’s Jake Hughes.
Campos’ Leonardo Pulcini and Simo Laaksonen completed the top 10.
Pedro Piquet, son of F1 champion Nelson Sr, ended in 11th.
Sauber F1 tester Tatiana Calderon was 17th.
