Mitch Evans topped free practice on the debut appearance of the GP3 series at Monaco, setting a stunning pace in what proved to be the dying seconds of the session.

The MW Arden driver looked set to miss out on top spot to Carlin's Antonio Felix da Costa after heading the timesheets during the middle stages of the 40-minute session.

But Evans repeatedly set fastest times in the middle sector, eventually stringing together a lap which was a remarkable seven-tenths of a second better than the Portuguese. He ended up setting fastest times overall in both the second and third sectors, showing that his place on top of the times was no fluke.

Evans set his time with three minutes to go just before red flags brought proceedings to a premature end when Carlin driver Will Buller spun entering Casino Square. Buller kept the car out of the barriers, but didn't have enough space to recover and had to rely on the marshals to recover him.

With Evans the only driver to break the 1m29s barrier, da Costa held onto second place ahead of Lotus driver Conor Daly. His team-mate Aaro Vainio, quickest overall in sector one, was fourth fastest.

Sometime GP2 driver Kevin Ceccon (Ocean) ended up fifth, just ahead of Alex Brundle (Carlin), the son of ex-grand prix driver Martin Brundle.

Despite the fact that the vast majority of the 26-car field were Monaco rookies, there were few incidents other than Buller's.

Manor Racing driver Dmitry Suranovich spun at Rascasse with five minutes to go, triggering a yellow flag that forced several drivers to abandon their laps, but beyond that it was an impressively clean session.


Pos Driver Team Time
1. Mitch Evans MW Arden 1m28.492s
2. Antonio Felix da Costa Carlin 1m29.207s
3. Conor Daly Lotus 1m29.289s
4. Aaro Vainio Lotus 1m29.442s
5. Kevin Ceccon Ocean 1m29.648s
6. Alex Brundle Carlin 1m29.730s
7. David Fumanelli MW Arden 1m29.876s
8. Daniel Abt Lotus 1m29.953s
9. Matias Laine MW Arden 1m29.991s
10. Marlon Stockinger Status 1m29.994s
11. Patric Niederhauser Jenzer 1m30.267s
12. Tio Ellinas Manor 1m30.394s
13. Tamas Pal Kiss Atech CRS 1m30.424s
14. William Buller Carlin 1m30.534s
15. Robert Visoiu Jenzer 1m30.581s
16. Kotaro Sakurai Status 1m30.927s
17. Alice Powell Status 1m31.429s
18. Dmitry Suranovich Manor 1m31.460s
19. Jakub Klasterka Jenzer 1m31.524s
20. Antonio Spavone Trident 1m32.074s
21. Vicky Piria Trident 1m32.265s
22. Robert Cregan Ocean 1m32.285s
23. John Wartique Atech CRS 1m32.405s
24. Ethan Ringel Atech CRS 1m32.460s
25. Fabiano Machado Manor 1m32.886s
26. Carmen Jorda Ocean 1m34.583s

Aaro Vainio claimed his first ever GP3 Series pole position in an early Friday morning qualifying for the series' maiden Monaco race.

Like GP2, GP3 split its field into two groups for Monte Carlo qualifying, with the group with the faster pacesetter taking the pole position side of the grid.

Lotus driver Vainio led the way in the second segment and went quickly enough to take pole from group one leader Kevin Ceccon (Ocean), as the Auto GP champion put the tough start to his GP3 career at Barcelona behind him and earned a front row start.

Atech CRS' Tamas Pal Kiss also showed his best GP3 qualifying form so far as he closed right in on Vainio at the end of the second session to secure third on the grid, alongside championship leader Mitch Evans (MW Arden), who was Ceccon's closest rival in the first group.

Evans' team-mate David Fumanelli will share row three with Status driver Marlon Stockinger. Lotus duo Daniel Abt and Conor Daly were fourth in their respective sessions so complete the overall top eight.

lets see if this one will offer some more action

formation lap udnerway

Evans needs a primer in rule #1 of motorsport.