Stromsted takes FREC pole in heavy rain at the Red Bull Ring

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Noah Stromsted took a dominant pole position for the second Formula Regional Europe race at the Red Bull Ring as heavy rain and cold temperatures played havoc with the morning qualifying session.

The first session began in wet conditions but gradually worsened, with heavy rain falling by the latter stages of the second session, preventing the Group A runners from coming close to the Race Performance Motorsport driver’s time.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Brando Badoer will start alongside Stromsted, having managed to post a lap before an off for Sainteloc Racing’s Enzo Peugeot brought out the red flag.

Prema’s Rafael Camara will start from fourth on the grid, although his closest championship rival Tuukka Taponen, as well as race one winner James Wharton, will have work to do starting from the eighth row.

Stromsted was simply in a different league in Group B, the first group on track. Stromsted led the times from the start of the session, improving on his final lap to finish almost eight-tenths clear of Sainteloc Racing’s Theophile Nael.

Stromsted set the first sub 1m44s lap to go top with nine minutes remaining, with Nael and Prema’s Ugo Ugochukwu fighting over second.

As times fell, Ugochukwu moved briefly to the front, but was immediately demoted by a lap of 1m41.742s from Stromsted, almost a full second clear of the rest of the field.

ART Grand Prix’s Alessandro Giusti moved up to second, albeit almost half-a-second adrift of Stromsted, with VAR’s Pedro Clerot slotting into second.

With a dry line beginning to form, the final two laps of the session brought improvements through the field.

Nael reclaimed second by just 0.002s on his penultimate lap from Giusti, although still 0.530s slower than Stromsted.

Nael improved again on his last lap to move to 0.072s behind Stromsted, but the Dane was on a final flying lap himself, improving his own best mark by 0.697s to consolidate top spot.

Clerot took third with his final lap, 0.008s ahead of Giusti, with Ugochukwu in fifth. Taponen finished the session in a disappointing eighth spot as R-ace GP again struggled for pace.

With the rain intensifying, Group A’s session was almost immediately red-flagged for Peugeot’s car to be recovered from the gravel at the final corner.

Badoer had topped the times before the red flag, and as the conditions worsened his time of 1m44.148s, set on his second lap, was enough to earn a front row start.

Championship leader Camara was one of the few to improve when the session resumed, jumping to second, although his time was still 1.227s off Badoer’s best.

R-ace GP’s Zachary David took third, ahead of the MP Motorsport trio of Valerio Rinicella, Nikita Bedrin and Nikhil Bohra, all with times from before the interruption.

The first two from race one, Prema’s Wharton and ART Grand Prix’s Evan Giltaire could only manage eighth and seventh respectively, with times set in some of the worst conditions. Giltaire had a spin at the Jochen Rindt curve as he looked to improve.

Qualifying results