F3: Mercedes junior Vesti beats Hauger to pole with late effort at Le Castellet

It’s not just in Formula 1 where Mercedes are battling with Red Bull, after a thrilling battle between two of the teams' academy drivers took place in Formula 3 Qualifying at the Le Castellet, with Mercedes protege Frederik Vesti setting a pole lap of 1m 50.882s to beat Red Bull’s Dennis Hauger by 0.181s late on.

PREMA racer Hauger had looked set to take pole for the second round in a row, controlling the majority of the session, but had no answer to a late effort from Vesti.

Running outside of the top 10 as the minutes ticked down, Vesti’s final fast lap went almost unnoticed, with focus instead on the battle between Hauger and his closest rival at the time, Renault junior Caio Collet. But Vesti set three green sectors, breaking the 1m 51s barrier to steal first from them both.

Collet, meanwhile, had not been able to keep up with Hauger and dropped down to fifth, with his Alpine Academy and MP Motorsport teammate Victor Martins improving to third, with Red Bull junior Jack Doohan jumping to fourth.

Finishing 12th overall, Jenzer Motorsport’s Calan Williams will start ahead of Trident’s David Schumacher in Saturday’s reverse grid Race 1, which takes place at 1010 local time.

Qualifying set the grid for Sunday morning's Race 3 that takes place at 1140 local time, while the grid for Race 2 at 1640 on Saturday will be set by reversing the top 10 finishers of Race 1.

For the full report, results and more news, visit the official F3 website.