F3: Red Bull junior Hauger beats Mercedes protege Vesti to pole in Austria

Red Bull junior Dennis Hauger and Mercedes youngster Frederik Vesti picked up their Formula 3 qualifying battle in Austria, Hauger beating Vesti to pole for Red Bull at their home event.

It was a case of roles reversed from Round 2, where Vesti nabbed P1 from Hauger at Le Castellet in the dying stages of qualifying. On this occasion, it was Hauger who improved late on, with the Norwegian stealing pole in the final minutes with a time of 1m19.726s.

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Vesti’s ART Grand Prix team mate Alex Smolyar was in third, ahead of Caio Collet. The Alpine junior recorded a time good enough for first, but had it taken away from him for exceeding track limits.

Sixteen-year-old Red Bull academy driver Jak Crawford achieved his strongest qualifying with fifth, 11 places higher than his previous best position in F3.

Finishing 12th overall, Charouz Racing System’s Logan Sargeant will start ahead of HWA RACELAB’s Matteo Nannini in Saturday’s reversed-grid Race 1, which takes place at 1035 local time.

Qualifying set the grid for Sunday morning's Race 3 that takes place at 1105 local time, while the grid for Race 2 at 1745 on Saturday will be set by reversing the top 12 finishers of Race 1.

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