F3: Russell claims double pole at Spa

George Russell claimed a double pole position in the second qualifying session of the Formula 3 European Championship round at Spa.

With the F3 cars on a dry track for the first time this weekend, Russell set two laps quicker than the best anyone else could manage in his Hitech Grand Prix Dallara-Mercedes, meaning he takes pole for Races 2 and 3.

Russell's final margin over second-quickest Joel Eriksson was 0.108 seconds.

"It was a bit tough with it being the first time on slicks the whole weekend, and it was quite slippery to be honest, the lap times were a bit slow," said Russell, the 2014 McLaren Autosport BRDC Award winner. "That made it tough to drive and a bit of a handful, but we got it right as a team and it was really good. If only this was a Pau or a Zandvoort where you can't overtake!"

Series rookie Eriksson, on his first taste of the Spa circuit in an F3 car in the dry, managed to take the second-fastest second-best time too, so the Swede will line up his Motopark Dallara-Volkswagen on the front row for Races 2 and 3.

"I had my reference in my head, so I plugged it in and worked up to those reference points," he said.

Nikita Mazepin made a huge jump in performance to take third-fastest time in his Hitech car, while Mikkel Jensen stamped in a big one-off improvement late in the session to plant his Mucke Motorsport car in fourth, although the Dane's second-best time is good only for 12th.

Ben Barnicoat made it three Hitech cars in the top five, and his ultra-consistent performance was enough to elevate him to third on the grid for race three.

Callum Ilott bounced back from his first-qualifying disaster to take sixth ahead of Van Amersfoort Racing teammate Anthoine Hubert, and the duo moves up to fourth and fifth on the grid for race three, with Mazepin's second-best time putting him sixth.

The big shock of the session was the form of the all-conquering Prema Powerteam, with Maximilian Gunther the best of the team's quartet in eighth (for both races) and championship leader Lance Stroll down in 11th, although he improves to ninth for race three.

Mucke's David Beckmann was ninth overall, and moves up to seventh on the grid for race three.

Tenth overall was the Motopark car of Guan Yu Zhou, with Prema's Nick Cassidy (13th overall) taking that position for race three.

RACE TWO QUALIFYING

Race 3 grid to follow

Originally on Autosport.com