At the 5.793 kilometres long circuit in the royal park of Monza with its long history, the Swede was 0.183 seconds faster than his team-mate Jake Dennis (Prema Powerteam, 1:43.949 minutes). Santino Ferrucci (kfzteile24 Mücke Motorsport, 1:43.970 minutes) and Alexander Albon (Signature, 1:44.027 minutes) as the best-placed rookie were classified third and fourth respectively, while Raoul Hyman (Team West-Tec F3, 1:44.052 minutes) and Lance Stroll (Prema Powerteam, 1:44.174 minutes) ended up in fifth and sixth place.

While 23-year-old Felix Rosenqvist already moved up into the lead around the halfway point, Jake Dennis, by four years his junior, only improved from fifth to second in the final minute of the session. Thus, the Brit toppled Santino Ferrucci, who eventually had to make do with third place. Still, this was the best qualifying result of the season to date for the 16-year-old American.

The same can be said for Raoul Hyman, while Alexander Albon, who was classified ahead of him, was already fourth in a qualifying session for the third time this season. For South-African Hyman, fifth place at the high-speed track of Monza was his best result to date. Behind 16-year-old rookie driver Lance Stroll, 20-year-old Mikkel Jensen (kfzteile24 Mücke Motorsport, 1:44.201 minutes) was the next rookie on the starting grid.

FIA Formula 3 European Championship points’ leader Antonio Giovinazzi (Jagonya Ayam with Carlin, 1:44.204 minutes) only qualified eighth. Just like British driver George Russell (Carlin, 1:44.259 minutes), who was ninth, the 21-year-old south-Italian only made it into the top ten in the final moments of the session. Charles Leclerc (Van Amersfoort Racing, 1:44.269 minutes), currently the best-placed rookie in the championship standings, completed the top ten.

Felix Rosenqvist (Prema Powerteam): “It wasn’t easy, because everyone out there was looking for slipstream. I think that I finally found a good position on the track and didn’t have a lot of traffic getting in my way. After doing two or three laps without slipstream, I tried to find a quick guy to follow. Too bad that it didn’t quite work out as I wanted. Fortunately, the fast lap times I had set before were enough to claim pole position.”