Photos: Formula Motorsport Ltd
MP Motorsport’s Emely de Heus and ART Grand Prix’s Lena Buhler headed the two qualifying sessions for F1 Academy’s first and third races at Barcelona.
De Heus, currently 14th in the championship standings, moved to the top of the times in the opening 15-minute session with a 1m41.344s lap, set with three minutes to go.
The Rodin Carlin trio of Abbi Pulling, Jessica Edgar and Megan Gilkes set the early pace and each took a turn at the front, with Pulling on provisional pole with a 1m41.584s lap before being usurped by de Heus.
Buhler moved to second in the closing stages to end Q1 0.035s seconds down on de Heus, and Pulling improved at the close to snatch third from MP’s Hamda Al Qubaisi. Championship leader Marta Garcia was fifth for Prema.
The second qualifying session got off to a slow start with only Edgar and Gilkes on track, before Campos Racing’s Lola Lovinfosse moved to the top halfway through. However, the Frenchwoman, being coached trackside by Hadrien David, was immediately demoted by Pulling and Campos’s Nerea Marti.
Buhler was the first driver in either session to drop into the 1m40s, putting her briefly top, before Al Qubaisi beat her time with a 1m40.963s.
Al Qubaisi looked to be on course for pole before Buhler improved again with two minutes to go, setting a 1m40.870s to take race three pole.
However Al Qubaisi’s time was still good enough to qualify on the front row, with Garcia taking third ahead of Pulling and MP’s Amna Al Qubaisi in fifth.
Marti could only go eighth fastest in both sessions.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Emely de Heus MP Motorsport 1m41.344s
2 Lena Buhler ART Grand Prix +0.035s
3 Abbi Pulling Rodin Carlin +0.105s
4 Hamda Al Qubaisi MP Motorsport +0.142s
5 Marta Garcia Prema +0.218s
6 Bianca Bustamante Prema +0.261s
7 Amna Al Qubaisi +0.313s
8 Nerea Marti Campos Racing +0.374s
9 Carrie Schreiner ART Grand Prix +0.855s
10 Chloe Grant Rodin Carlin +0.989s
Race 3 grid
1 Buhler 1m40.870s
2 H Al Qubaisi +0.093s
3 Garcia +0.157s
4 Pulling +0.171s
5 A Al Qubaisi +0.325s
6 de Heus +0.336s
7 Megan Gilkes Rodin Carlin +0.552s
8 Marti +0.610s
9 Bustamante +0.633s
10 Lola Lovinfose Campos Racing +0.635s