R01 Melbourne – FIA Formula 3 Qualifying Report – Ugochukwu places P8 in eventful Melbourne qualifying session
PREMA Racing wrapped up the first qualifying session of the FIA Formula 3 Championship season today at Melbourne’s Albert Park. The session was interrupted by two red-flag situations and was not resumed after the second, which cost drivers the opportunity to make full use of their second set of tyres.
Ugo Ugochukwu ended up being the best-placed PREMA driver in P8. The American will rely on a solid starting position and now aims to use the car’s full potential to make up in the races.
Brando Badoer was involved in an off that damaged his car, causing the first red flag. He ended up in P19. Noél Leon also had a challenging day managing traffic and maximizing his potential. He eventually finished in P20. Both the Italian and the Mexican are aiming for a rebound in the two races.
#1 BRANDO BADOER
“First day at Melbourne, a new track for me and a very exciting one to drive on. During practice, we built a rhythm but couldn’t do too many laps due to red flags, but we still managed to learn the track. In qualifying we were ok with the first set, didn’t maximise the full potential but the feeling with the car was quite decent. With the second set, I went off in the first push. We still need to understand the reason, we’ll look into it to see what happened.”
#2 NOEL LEON
“Quite a difficult qualifying with traffic in my first flying lap and then I compromised a bit the second one. We then didn’t have a chance to use the second set of tyres. We have a car to be more up front so this is not ideal and we should be further up the classification. Still, long races tomorrow and Sunday with a lot of degradation so we need to keep working hard and we can still gain some positions.”
#3 UGO UGOCHUKWU
“Free Practice and qualifying are now finished and overall it was a pretty positive day. We made a good step from practice to qualifying to finish eighth. Unfortunately, there were a lot of red flags so we might have been able to do a bit better but generally still a positive result which puts us in a good position for both races.”
