Force India Formula 1 tester Nikita Mazepin claimed his first GP3 pole in qualifying for the Russian feature race, cutting Anthoine Hubert’s drivers’ championship lead to 25 points.
Mazepin set the fastest time on multiple occasions throughout the 30-minute session, but secured the position with a time of 1m52.569s as the chequered flag was flown.
The Russian went wide at Turn 4 and went left off-track as he approached the start-finish line, but it was enough to deny Campos’ Leonardo Pulcini a second series’ pole by 0.017 seconds.
Callum Ilott dropped to third following Pulcini’s effort, while Ferrari F1 academy colleague Giuliano Alesi is set to start alongside on the second row of the grid.
Hubert was the first driver to drop into the 1m52s bracket but only improved by another two tenths to finish fifth.
The Renault-affiliated Frenchman needs to outscore Mazepin by 24 points and Ilott by 20 from the weekend’s races to guarantee the title on points.
In that scenario, he would be 49 ahead with 48 remaining at the Abu Dhabi finale.
Ryan Tveter and Simo Laaksonen were the latest two racers to improve, moving to sixth and seventh on the timesheets.
Richard Verschoor claimed his career-best qualifying result with eighth, with Joey Mawson ninth.
ART’s Jake Hughes looked set to challenge for pole but made an error on his final lap approaching Turn 1, dropping to 10th.
Renault academy driver Sacha Fenestraz, entering his first weekend with Arden after replacing Julien Falchero, placed 13th.
David Beckmann, who claimed the last two poles at Spa and Monza, had to stop as drivers approached their penultimate laps as smoke emerged from the rear of his Trident-Dallara machine, finishing 15th.
The session contained only 19 drivers for the first time since the Hungarian round in July following Niko Kari’s promotion to F2 with MP.
