Antonelli flies to pole for FREC’s first Barcelona race

Photo: Prema

Andrea Kimi Antonelli took pole for the first Formula Regional European Championship race of the weekend at Barcelona with a stunning lap in the second qualifying session.

With R-ace GP’s Tim Tramnitz topping the times in the slower Group B, it means the front row will be occupied by the same drivers as for race two, where Tramnitz has pole.

After glorious sunshine for Q1 in the morning, menacing rain clouds had accumulated above the circuit as the two groups prepared for Q2 in the afternoon.

Tramnitz was able to put in the fastest time in Group B, first out on track this time around, before a red flag interrupted the session just after the halfway mark. Despite a late improvement, Van Amersfoort Racing’s Kas Haverkort was unable to beat Tramnitz and will start race one from fourth.

The Monolite Racing duo of Giovanni Maschio and Enzo Scionti set the initial pace in Group B before G4 Racing’s Alessandro Giusti moved briefly to the top with a 1m44.424s.

However, Tramnitz was on a flying lap and went 2.759s faster than Giusti.

Trident’s Nikhil Bohra moved up to second, 0.263s down on Tramnitz, with ART Grand Prix’s Laurens van Hoepen and Trident’s Owen Tangavelou slotting into third and fourth before an off from Maschio at turn 10 brought out red flags with just under seven minutes left on the clock.

After the restart, MP Motorsport’s Sami Meguetounif put in a quick lap to go second, 0.089s off Tramnitz, with the VAR pair of Joshua Dufek and Haverkort just behind in third and fourth.

While Tramnitz was unable to make any further improvement, Haverkort was looking to improve on his final lap, setting personal bests in each sector, before ultimately falling just 0.037s short of the pace.

Trident’s Roman Bilinski was first to set a sub-1m40s lap in Group A, posting a 1m37.224s halfway through their time on track.

As track conditions improved, laptimes began to fall rapidly. Arden’s Joshua Duerksen, G4 Racing’s Michael Belov and then championship leader Martinius Stenshorne all took turns at the front.

With just over six minutes left, Prema’s Lorenzo Fluxa went fastest with a 1m36.479s lap. MP’s Dilano van’t Hoff slotted into second, just 0.049s behind.

Behind them, Antonelli was flying, going fastest in all three sectors to set a 1m36.134s and lead Fluxa by 0.345s.

However, the third Prema entry of Rafael Camara was still languishing in 14th and despite improving late on could do no better than sixth in the group.

Race Performance Motorsport’s Santiago Ramos moved ahead of Fluxa to take second with six minutes remaining but was unable to get close to Antonelli, ending 0.268s adrift. Nevertheless, starting from row two represents a strong result as the team tries to bounce back from a difficult weekend in Imola.

R-P-M’s second car was fourth in the group courtesy of Maceo Capietto, ahead of van’t Hoff in fifth.

Qualifying results