Lynn secures pole on Macau debut

Formula 3 rookie Alex Lynn took a shock pole position for the Macau Grand Prix after recording the fastest time in the second session.

The Briton, who was fourth in the British F3 International Series, leapt to the top of the times by 0.278 seconds in his Fortec Motorsport Dallara-Mercedes with eight minutes remaining. Moments later, Lucas Auer crashed at R Bend to bring out the red flags.

After the restart, the drivers were on their first flying laps when Felipe Nasr slid sideways into the tyre wall, again at R Bend, to cause another session stoppage. With only two minutes left on the clocks, there was no restart.

“I’m really happy with that result,” said Lynn. “I just clicked nicely with the circuit from yesterday morning, and today is a great day! I lined up [Ryo] Hirakawa at the start of the lap for a tow and got in front of him into Lisboa. From then it was a clean lap – not crazy or out of control.”

Until Lynn’s lap, Antonio Felix da Costa was clinging on to the top spot in his Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen with his time from Thursday, although European champion Daniel Juncadella (Prema Powerteam Dallara-Mercedes) had got within 0.001s of the Portuguese.

But this was a scrappy session for da Costa due to the stoppages, and he also lost time pitting for his new set of tyres during green-flag running.

“Alex did a good job, but it’s Sunday that counts,” he said.

Both Juncadella and Felix Rosenqvist, fourth in his Mucke Motorsport Dallara-Mercedes, felt they were hampered by traffic and red flags, although like da Costa they were not too concerned with not being on pole on a circuit where it is relatively easy to pass in F3.

Carlos Sainz Jr and Nasr, who improved on Thursday’s time before his accident, form an all-Carlin third row, while Harry Tincknell made a major improvement to go seventh on the grid in his Fortec car. He will share the fourth row with Mucke driver Pascal Wehrlein.

GP3 star Daniel Abt just managed to pop in a lap before the final red flag to go ninth in his Carlin car, ahead of Prema duo Raffaele Marciello and Hannes van Asseldonk.

Behind them, Pipo Derani made it three of Fortec’s rookies in the top 12, although the team’s other driver, Felix Serralles, caused the first of the three red flags when he crashed right in front of team-mate Lynn at Faraway Hill.

Source: http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/real-world-racing/3rdparty/lynn-secures-pole-on-macau-debut

Nick Heidfeld Theo Helfrich Mack Hellings Brian Henton Johnny Herbert