Photo: FRMEC
Taylor Barnard and Rafael Camara took a pole position each in Formula Regional Middle East’s two tightly contested qualifying sessions at Dubai Autodrome.
There were one late change to the entry list for the third round of the season, with Isaac Barashi replacing Valerio Rinicella at MP Motorport for the remainder of the season.
Barashi started his single-seater career with two British Formula 4 rounds in 2022, scoring 16 points, then in a full campaign there last year he claimed two podiums but only came 20th in the standings. He also came 20th in the Formula Winter Series and came 36th in Spanish F4 where he contested a half-season.
After a day of pre-event testing and practice, the field had already got up to pace by the time qualifying started on Saturday morning and it showed by how close it was at the top.
PHM Racing’s Taylor Barnard was fastest in Q1, but only by 0.047 seconds over Mumbai Falcons’ Rafael Camara who had been the quickest driver through Thursday.
R-ace GP’s Tuukka Taponen was just 0.016s slower than Camara in third place, with Pinnacle Motorsport’s Mari Boya also within a tenth of a second of Barnard in fourth.
There was then a larger pace gap to R-ace’s Martinius Stenshorne in fifth, as he was 0.298s off pole, and Mumbai Falcons’ Ugo Ugochukwi in sixth who was 0.505s off the pace. The spread of pace in the top five was larger than the gap that covered fifth to 15th.
It was a noticably poor qualifying session for Sainteloc Racing’s Theophile Nael and Mumbai Falcons’ Arvid Lindblad, as they were only 12th and 15th fastest.
The pace was lowered even further in Q2, where it was just as tight in the battle for pole.
This time Camara prevailed, setting a 1m54.406s to edge Taponen by one hundredth of a second. Barnard was 0.074s behind in third, and Boya was 0.105s off pole in fourth.
PHM’s Brando Badoer got himself into fifth on the grid by only being 0.222s slower than Camara, with team-mate Inthraphuvasak, Lindblad, Stenshorne, MP Motorsport’s Bruno del Pino and Mumbai Falcons’ James Wharton completing the top 10. Wharton had been 11th in Q1.
There were 14 drivers within a second of the pole position laptime, with Ugochukwu outside of that group as he qualified 17th.
Pinnacle’s Finley Green did not set any laptimes in either qualifying session.
Qualifying round-up
Q1
1 Taylor Barnard PHM Racing 1m54.870s
2 Rafael Camara Mumbai Falcons +0.047s
3 Tuukka Taponen R-ace GP +0.063s
4 Mari Boya Pinnacle Motorsport +0.085s
5 Martinius Stenshorne R-ace GP +0.298s
6 Ugo Ugochukwu Mumbai Falcons +0.505s
7 Brando Badoer PHM Racing +0.635s
8 Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak PHM Racing +0.658s
9 Nikhil Bohra MP Motorsport +0.683s
10 Bruno del Pino MP Motorsport +0.720s
Q2
1 Camara 1m54.406s
2 Taponen +0.010s
3 Barnard +0.074s
4 Boya +0.105s
5 Badoer +0.222s
6 Inthraphuvasak +0.260s
7 Arvid Lindblad Mumbai Falcons +0.358s
8 Stenshorne +0.364s
9 Del Pino +0.441s
10 James Wharton Mumbai Falcons +0.461s