Trident’s Freddie Slater claimed his third pole position of the 2026 Formula 3 season in Monza ahead of teammate Matteo De Palo and Nicola Lacorte in a qualifying session split into two groups with 10 minutes of running each. Feeder Series spoke to Slater and Lacorte to find out how the long waits to go out affected their plans in the session. 

By Tori Turner

Having won the most recent feature race in Budapest back in July, Slater extended his championship lead from eight to 10 points after taking pole in the season’s penultimate qualifying session. His closest rival Ugo Ugochukwu made a mistake on his sole flying lap and finished ninth in his group, though he will start both races from 23rd after receiving a penalty for an incident in practice.

“I would have taken a championship or anything without a win and we’re going to try and do that anyway,” Slater told Feeder Series about his mindset heading into this weekend.

“For me, it’s not been a reliever of pressure. It was just a chain of events that came at the right time from a media point of view. It looked like it was the perfect timing for summer break, but for myself, it was because we had better execution, better race pace than we had the races before. That’s the reason we won on Sunday in Budapest. It wasn’t because Sunday magically came at the right time and this pressure building up. It was just good race pace we’ve definitely improved on over the season because at the start of the season, it was definitely a bit of an issue.

 “We just need to see what we can do and maximise every single result that we’ve been doing all year because that’s been the attitude since day one, just maximising every single result. If it’s fifth, take the fifth. If it’s a win, take the win. That’s what we’ve done really well all season to put ourselves in a position to win the championship. Now we need to keep doing the same and keep rolling to see what we can get some results in.”

As in Monaco, group A contained the even-numbered cars after a ballot was held earlier in the race weekend.

With track position vital around the circuit, the majority of the group’s 15 drivers opted to remain in the pit lane for the start of the 10-minute session. Brando Badoer, Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi, Bruno Del Pino and Hiyu Yamakoshi headed out, but all returned to the pit lane with 7:20 left without setting a timed lap.

With 5:20 left on the clock, all 15 cars lined up in the pit lane exit and took to the track for their warm-up laps to bring their tyres up to temperature. Tuukka Taponen began the first flying lap of the session with 1:48 left and crossed the line having set a 1:38.458. 

Yamakoshi bested his time by 0.197 seconds and shot to the top of the timing tower with Taito Kato and Fernando Barrichello slotting in behind him at the end of the first runs. With so little time left when they started their first runs, only seven drivers out of the 15 crossed the line with enough time for another run to try improving their times. 

Crucially, championship contender Ugo Ugochukwu missed the apex at Turn 1 at the start of his only flying lap and dipped his wheels into the gravel at Turn 2 – an error that cost him several tenths and left him down in ninth in the group. This only added to his nightmare weekend as before qualifying, he had received a five-place grid penalty for both races for causing a collision with De Palo in practice.

Whilst the Italian may have suffered suspension damage from being rammed into the wall by Ugochukwu, there was no trace of any lasting issues in qualifying. He shot up from seventh to first with a 1:38.143 to top his group on his second flying lap, usurping Kato, who had displaced Yamakoshi at the top with a 1:38.222 a few seconds before. Kanato Le slotted in between the two, going just two hundredths slower than De Palo.

Ten minutes after the chequered flag waved for group A, the second session began with the odd-numbered cars of group B taking to the track. That in itself was in direct contrast to how the first session started, with all 15 drivers heading out of the pit lane at the very start to get to grips with the 5.793-kilometre track. 

During this period, a queue formed behind championship leader Slater, leaving him without a tow for his future flying laps. The Briton dived into the pit lane in an attempt to find a new position within the queue but was promptly followed by the rest. This triggered a new period of waiting as no driver wanted to be the first out on track again. 

They remained in the pit lane until 3:10 remained on the clock, guaranteeing that each driver would have to rush through their warm-up laps to ensure they could have a flying lap. AIX Racing bit the bullet and sent Yevan David out first, with the other 14 drivers following him out.

“We only had one lap,” Lacorte told Feeder Series. “It was more difficult compared to group A. That’s what we’re here for, especially in F3 and F2. We get to do very few laps from practice to quali and that’s what you need in this championship, to be on it every time you hit the track. We didn’t even get to do the full warm-up, so whoever gets the best out of the tyres in this weird situation is the best. We did a good job with that.”

The extended waiting games meant that the first flying laps started with just over a minute left on the clock, 35 seconds after group A’s laps. In what effectively became one-shot qualifying, David provisionally topped the group for a matter of seconds with a 1:39.156, more than a second slower than De Palo’s time. Giusti went ahead of him momentarily with a 1:38.626 before Slater skyrocketed to the top with a 1:38.114.

“It was an exciting moment,” Slater told Feeder Series. “It’s definitely a cool moment we will look back on and think that was good fun, but it definitely wasn’t the easiest because we went out, then we boxed again, then we had just an out lap and the tyres were not in the best condition.

“It’s one of those things that you just have to get on with it. When that clock is ticking down, you’re thinking, ‘surely we’re going to go soon’ and then it was another one or two minutes and you’re thinking, ‘I’m literally going to do an out lap and one push’. You want to hit your references at that point and know where they are due to all the preparation we do. Hopefully you can just feel the grip underneath you as you do the out lap and then deliver the job and see where you end up and just try and drive at the limit of the grip. That’s what we did.”

Slater’s time ensured that group B would occupy the odd-numbered spots of the grid for Sunday’s feature race as he bested Trident teammate De Palo’s time by 0.029s. His lap also handed him his third pole position of the season after his timesheet-topping efforts in Silverstone and Spa, putting him level with Théophile Naël for the most poles in the 2026 season. 

“Giacomo [Ricci], the team manager, did a really good job,” Slater said about Trident’s strategy in qualifying. “Hats off to him for what he did. He had all the situations covered. He kept me up to date with the info, how much margin we had, if we could do two pushes, one push. The sequence and the run plan was changing every minute, every second, so hats off to them for coming under pressure and giving me the job to go out there and do what I do. 

“From then on, it was my job to just put a clean lap in, have a good position with a good tow and hopefully get pole at the end of the day.”

Slater’s pole was Trident’s third in the last four years at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, with Oliver Goethe taking pole in 2023 and Leonardo Fornaroli following it up in 2024 two days before clinching the title. By topping group A, De Palo will line up alongside Slater on Sunday, which will mark Trident’s first front-row  lockout in a feature race since the 2025 season opener at Albert Park.

Lacorte finished 0.236s behind Slater in the second session and took DAMS’ first top-three finish in qualifying. Le will occupy fourth in front of Ernesto Rivera in fifth and Kato in sixth. 

Giusti, who scored points in both races at the circuit last year, managed seventh. Yamakoshi ended up eighth with Colnaghi ninth and Barrichello rounding out the top 10. Taponen, who finished sixth in group A, will line up on the front row for Saturday’s reverse-grid sprint race alongside polesitter Pedro Clerot.

Campos’ Naël, who is third in the championship on 75 points, had a disastrous qualifying after exceeding track limits at Turn 1 on his only flying lap, making him one of two drivers not to set a lap time alongside Jin Nakamura. Brando Badoer, four points behind Naël in fifth, qualified seventh in group A, missing out on the reverse grid for his home race. Prema Racing debutant Alex Powell will line up 26th after qualifying 13th in group A.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency