Hiyu Yamakoshi earned his maiden Formula 3 pole position at the Red Bull Ring with a stellar lap at the halfway point of the session. Fresh off his first podium in the series, the Japanese driver got the better of Ugo Ugochukwu and Tuukka Taponen by the skin of his teeth, with the top three separated by just 0.045 seconds. Feeder Series spoke to the polesitter after his qualifying efforts.

By Daniele Spadi

This marks Yamakoshi’s second consecutive top-three finish in qualifying after he took third two weeks ago at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. In the Styrian countryside, however, he was the best right from the start.

With his opening qualifying effort, the Japanese went straight to the top of the timesheets. His first lap proved to be a good one, as neither Théophile Naël nor Ugochukwu was able to beat him. The two Campos Racing teammates slotted into second and fifth respectively, though the Frenchman later had his lap time deleted for a track limits violation at Turn 1.

Times tumbled as drivers finished their first flying laps, and it was MP Motorsport who showcased the best pace as Taponen went to the top ahead of Alessandro Giusti.

Given the circuit’s smoothness, which limits tyre degradation, plenty of drivers went for back-to-back flying laps. After having his first lap deleted, Naël was 0.037s quicker than Taponen through the first two sectors, but a power slide into the penultimate corner sent him bouncing over the kerbs and forced him to abort his second run.

It was Noah Strømsted who excelled in his second run, jumping to first with a 1:21.859, though Taponen quickly retook the lead by 0.084s over the Dane. Giusti was third, with ART Grand Prix’s Taito Kato and Kanato Le in the top five.

The top four in the drivers’ standings had a rough first run. Ugochukwu found himself down in 10th, while Bruno Del Pino sat in 13th. Freddie Slater was 19th after a troublesome first run on which he hit the bollard at the final corner and lost a lap time by exceeding track limits, while Naël was left in 28th.

At the halfway stage, Van Amersfoort Racing made a bold strategy call that ultimately decided the session’s outcome.

The Dutch outfit elected to get out on track with all three of their cars halfway through the session, a choice no one else made. This enabled Yamakoshi to set his lap in clean air, and he made the most of it – taking first place once again, this time with a 1:21.730. His teammates Del Pino and Enzo Deligny rose to 10th and 12th respectively.

DAMS opted to copy that call by doing the same with 10 minutes left on the clock, though they aborted their plan once it became clear that they would encounter the remaining 27 drivers, who were starting their runs with eight minutes to go. The French outfit called their three drivers in and went back out with the rest of the field.

Things got heated with three minutes left on the clock, as no one wanted to go first with no tow to utilise. Ultimately, plenty of drivers found themselves too close to the cars in front, thus losing grip in the second sector.

This did not prevent Ugochukwu from rising to second, just 0.015s off Yamakoshi. Slater quickly followed suit, slotting into fourth, which then became fifth as his teammate Strømsted took over his position. Kato looked set to fight for pole, but a slight mistake at the penultimate corner sent him spinning and put an end to his hopes.

Ultimately, no one else was able to challenge for first, thus enabling Yamakoshi to take pole position for the first time in more than two years – a historic triple pole in round two of the 2024 Italian F4 Championship around Imola being the last time he posted the quickest qualifying lap.

The Japanese driver has been in great form in recent weeks. Though he was disqualified from a sprint race victory in Monaco, he rebounded by taking second in the feature race in Barcelona from third on the grid.

Between that round and this one, he went to Monza with Van Amersfoort Racing’s FRegional Europe team to help their drivers – Dion Gowda, Francisco Macedo and Andrea Dupé – get used to the car. It  isn’t just a testament to his character but also a hidden advantage on track.

“It’s always good to go there and teach other drivers, and try to help them understand what the engineer is doing, and the track.” Yamakoshi told Feeder Series.

“That’s actually helped me out a lot, especially teaching the driver, with the on-board and everything. I can actually learn from them, I can visualise what they do in their program, and that’s actually my program as well. It’s always good to go and help them.”

The result also marks Van Amersfoort Racing’s first pole position in the series in more than four years. Their previous pole position was thanks to current Formula 1 driver Franco Colapinto, who had taken an astonishing pole on his and the team’s F3 debut in Bahrain in 2022.

Ugochukwu and Slater did well to recover from a far-from-perfect start to their session to place second and fifth. Between them, Taponen took third, 0.045s behind Yamakoshi, while Strømsted was able to finish in fourth.

Giusti placed sixth ahead of Kato and Le, though the French driver earned a three-place grid penalty for both races for impeding Christian Ho at Turn 3 in the session’s dying moments. A personal best result for Jin Nakamura saw him take ninth, thus making it four Japanese drivers in the top 10 for the first time ever in an FIA F3 qualifying session.

Pedro Clerot was the best Rodin Motorsport driver in 10th, while Red Bull junior Ernesto Rivera and James Wharton rounded out the top 12. The two of them will start from the front row of the grid in tomorrow’s sprint, with Wharton on sprint pole in Spielberg for the second year in a row and hoping to convert it to his second sprint win at the circuit.

Del Pino will be gutted to miss out on reverse-grid pole by just 0.041s, as he is set to line up in 13th for both races. A dreadful qualifying session for Naël meant the three-time polesitter finished all the way down in 24th, one place ahead of Colombia’s Salim Hanna, who is making his F3 debut with AIX to replace the injured Brad Benavides.

Several drivers lost their best laps late in the session, including Mattia Colnaghi, whose final effort put him eighth before it was annulled. He ultimately finished the session 18th, with fellow Red Bull junior Fionn McLaughlin 23rd.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency