Ugo Ugochukwu was the fastest driver in the lone free practice session for the opening round of the Formula 3 championship. In the session held at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne, Australia, on the Thursday night (5) according to Brasília time, the Campos Racing driver posted a best lap of 1m34.607s.
The second place ended up with Brando Badoer, a Rodin driver who finished 0.427 seconds behind Ugochukwu. Noah Stromsted, piloting an machine from Trident, claimed third, followed by Theóphile Nael in fourth for Campos Racing. The group of the five best also included Alessandro Giusti, of MP Motorsport.
Brad Benavides, the driver representing AIX Racing, completed the session with the sixth-fastest time, ahead of Pedro Clerot, the Brazilian making his F3 debut and finishing seventh with Rodin. Nicola Lacorte, of DAMS, Christian Ho, of Rodin, and Louis Sharp, of Prema, closed out the top-10. Fefo Barrichello concluded the session in 30th place with an AIX-powered car.
The activity that opened the season was brought to a stop under red flag conditions. Argentine Mattia Colnaghi, driving for MP Motorsport, stopped on track with only a few minutes remaining before the session’s scheduled end in Melbourne. With no time to recover the car, the session was halted.
From midnight on Friday, the classification for the starting grid of the weekend’s two races will take place. The Sprint is scheduled for 21:15 on the same day, while the main race will begin at 18:50 on Saturday.
