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F3 Bahrain: Beganovic pips Browing to pole

Dino Beganovic made an impressive start to the F3 season, backing up his strong performance in free practice by setting the fastest time in the first qualifying session of the year.

Williams Academy driver Luke Browning was second in his Hitech entry, falling 0.167s short of the 1m46.431s pole time of his Prema-entered rival.

ART driver Laurens van Hoepen will start the first race of the year, Friday's partial reverse-grid sprint offering, from pole position after qualifying in 12th.

The session began poorly for Joshua Dufek, who was forced to return to the pits following the first of his two warm-up laps with a transponder issue on his PHM AIX Racing entry.

It briefly appeared that he could have been granted a reprieve as Campos Racing driver Oliver Goethe took too much kerb at Turn 3 on his opening flying lap and caused his car to shut off.

Despite coasting up the straight to Turn 4, Goethe was able to get his engine started again without causing a red flag that could have benefited Dufek.

Dufek later found himself under investigation for touring the support race pitlane during the moment of strife.

Luke Browning, Hitech Pulse Eight (Photo by: Formula Motorsport Ltd)

While 18 drivers registered times in the opening stint, the pace-setter from the earlier practice session, Browning (Hitech), was among those to return to the pits without troubling the timesheets.

This was in contrast to the driver who finished second in that session, Leonardo Fornaroli (Trident), who led the way with a 1m47.619s.

A somewhat cleaner second run saw all drivers put a time on the board with Fornaroli briefly falling down the order before re-establishing himself at the top of the pile, improving by half a second to 1m47.141s.

Less than two tenths covered the top six before the final efforts as Beganovic (Prema) went second-fastest, just 0.060s back. Browning was at the tail end of the top six while Nikita Bedrin (PHM AIX Racing) sat in the all important P12, a position that gives reverse grid pole for the sprint race.

However, this placing was short-lived as Max Esterson (Jenzer) had his time deleted, shuffling the order and promoting Goethe into the sprint pole position.

In the final shuffle, Christian Mansell (ART) crossed the line first to lower the benchmark before eventually dropping to eighth.

Behind the front row of Beganovic and Browning are Gabriele Mini (Prema), Sami Meguetounif and Santiago Ramos (both Trident). Fornaroli eventually dropped to sixth.

F3 Bahrain - Qualifying results

   
1
 - 
3
   
Cla Driver # Laps Time Interval km/h
1
D. Beganovic Prema Powerteam
1 10

1'46.431

  183.059
2
L. Browning Hitech Pulse-Eight
14 10

+0.167

1'46.598

0.167 182.772
3
G. Minì Prema Powerteam
2 10

+0.170

1'46.601

0.003 182.767
4
S. Meguetounif Trident
5 11

+0.364

1'46.795

0.194 182.435
5
S. Ramos Trident
6 11

+0.367

1'46.798

0.003 182.430
6
L. Fornaroli Trident
4 11

+0.374

1'46.805

0.007 182.418
7
T. Tramnitz MP Motorsport
7 11

+0.397

1'46.828

0.023 182.379
8
C. Mansell ART Grand Prix
23 11

+0.412

1'46.843

0.015 182.353
9
A. Lindblad Prema Powerteam
3 10

+0.442

1'46.873

0.030 182.302
10
M. Esterson Jenzer Motorsport
18 11

+0.503

1'46.934

0.061 182.198
11
N. Tsolov ART Grand Prix
25 11

+0.510

1'46.941

0.007 182.186
12
L. Van ART Grand Prix
24 11

+0.531

1'46.962

0.021 182.150
13
N. León Van Amersfoort Racing
20 11

+0.600

1'47.031

0.069 182.033
14
A. Dunne MP Motorsport
9 12

+0.702

1'47.133

0.102 181.859
15
M. Boya Campos Racing
12 11

+0.739

1'47.170

0.037 181.797
16
C. Wurz Jenzer Motorsport
17 10

+0.760

1'47.191

0.021 181.761
17
O. Goethe Campos Racing
10 11

+0.767

1'47.198

0.007 181.749
18
N. Bedrin PHM AIX Racing
27 11

+0.778

1'47.209

0.011 181.731
19
C. Voisin Rodin Motorsport
29 11

+0.785

1'47.216

0.007 181.719
20
M. Zagazeta Jenzer Motorsport
19 10

+0.786

1'47.217

0.001 181.717
21
J. Loake Rodin Motorsport
31 11

+0.788

1'47.219

0.002 181.714
22
M. Stenshorne Hitech Pulse-Eight
15 11

+1.040

1'47.471

0.252 181.287
23
T. Inthraphuvasak PHM AIX Racing
26 11

+1.304

1'47.735

0.264 180.843
24
K. Sztuka MP Motorsport
8 11

+1.314

1'47.745

0.010 180.826
25 Germany S. Flörsch Van Amersfoort Racing 21 11

+1.381

1'47.812

0.067 180.714
26
J. Dufek PHM AIX Racing
28 7

+1.447

1'47.878

0.066 180.604
27
T. Smith Van Amersfoort Racing
22 11

+1.498

1'47.929

0.051 180.518
28
P. Wiśnicki Rodin Motorsport
30 11

+1.540

1'47.971

0.042 180.448
29 Colombia S. Montoya Campos Racing 11 11

+1.927

1'48.358

0.387 179.803
30
C. Shields Hitech Pulse-Eight
16 11

+2.134

1'48.565

0.207 179.461
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