Photo: ACI Sport
Championship leader Freddie Slater secured his fourth Formula Regional Europe pole position of 2025 in Q2 at Paul Ricard, pipping Prema team-mate Rashid Al Dhaheri by 0.05 seconds.
His championship rivals Pedro Clerot (Van Amersfoort Racing) and Matteo De Palo (Trident) will line up on the second row.
Slater and Clerot topped the opening flying laps in Group B. The former moved to the front with a 1m57.838s on his fifth lap, edging Clerot and R-ace GP’s Akshay Bohra, the three split by just 0.005s.
After a lap to cool their tyres, the three embarked on a final push lap. Bohra looked to be on course to challenge the front two with a best time in the first sector, before Slater nailed the second part of the lap to take the flag in 1m57.44s.
Clerot could not match the Prema driver, despite going fastest in the final sector, but held off Bohra for third by 0.024s.
ART Grand Prix’s Kanato Le jumped up to fourth in the group, albeit over half a second adrift of Slater, with countryman Hiyu Yamakoshi taking fifth for VAR.
The R-ace GP pair of Enzo Deligny and Jin Nakamura looked to get clean air at the front of the train in Group A, as the field jostled for position behind them, with De Palo having to fight through the slower cars to find space on track.
Deligny and Nakamura moved to the top with their first flying laps and on his following effort Evan Giltaire went purple in the first two sectors then demoted them with a 1m58.209s lap.
On their second push lap, Deligny moved back to the top but soon saw his laptime beaten by the following Nakamura. Al Dhaheri then eclipsed them with a 1m57.756s, as Giltaire slotted into third.
It came down to the final flying laps. Deligny again went fastest but behind him Al Dhaheri was flying, going 0.15s quicker in the fastest sector than anybody else in either group. Giltaire posted a sector-best in the middle sector as he sought to make amends for a slightly slower first sector.
Al Dhaheri held on to top the group and ensure a front row grid slot, and he was only narrowly shy of Slater’s benchmark
Having not featured in the top four until that point, De Palo timed his run to perfection to go second and crossed the line just 0.018s slower than Al Dhaheri. Deligny, Giltaire and Nakamura completed the top five.
Qualifying results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Group B | Group A | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Freddie Slater | Prema | 1m57.440s | 8 | |
| 2 | Rashid Al Dhaheri | Prema | 1m57.494s | 8 | |
| 3 | Pedro Clerot | Van Amersfoort Racing | 1m57.613s | 8 | |
| 4 | Matteo De Palo | Trident | 1m57.512s | 8 | |
| 5 | Akshay Bohra | R-ace GP | 1m57.637s | 8 | |
| 6 | Enzo Deligny | R-ace GP | 1m57.631s | 8 | |
| 7 | Kanato Le | ART Grand Prix | 1m57.967s | 8 | |
| 8 | Evan Giltaire | ARR Grand Prix | 1m57.725s | 8 | |
| 9 | Hiyu Yamakoshi | Van Amersfoort Racing | 1m58.047s | 8 | |
| 10 | Jin Nakamura | R-ace GP | 1m57.754s | 8 | |
| 11 | Nikita Bedrin | Sainteloc Racing | 1m58.197s | 8 | |
| 12 | Taito Kato | ART Grand Prix | 1m57.797s | 8 | |
| 13 | Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi | Trident | 1m58.205s | 7 | |
| 14 | Jack Beeton | Prema | 1m57.986s | 8 | |
| 15 | Doriane Pin | Prema | 1m58.279s | 8 | |
| 16 | Ean Eyckmans | R-P-M | 1m58.106s | 8 | |
| 17 | Enzo Yeh | R-P-M | 1m58.433s | 7 | |
| 18 | Michael Belov | CL Motorsport | 1m58.210s | 8 | |
| 19 | Dion Gowda | Van Amersfoort Racing | 1m58.554s | 8 | |
| 20 | Zachary David | CL Motorsport | 1m58.519s | 8 | |
| 21 | Ruiqi Liu | Trident | 1m58.662s | 7 | |
| 22 | Edu Robinson | G4 Racing | 1m58.808s | 8 | |
| 23 | Edouard Borgna | G4 Racing | 2m00.130s | 7 | |
| 24 | Giovanni Maschio | R-P-M | 1m58.822s | 8 | |
| 25 | Tim Gerhards | Sainteloc Racing | 1m58.908s | 8 | |
| 26 | Yaroslav Veselaho | Sainteloc Racing | 1m59.808s | 8 |