Photo: ACI Sport
R-ace GP’s Enzo Deligny continued his scorching pace at Hockenheim to top the times in qualifying for today’s Formula Regional Europe race.
Deligny topped the times in group A, beating the 1m34.933s benchmark set by Trident’s Matteo De Palo in group B by 0.036 seconds. He could have gone faster if not for a mistake on his final lap.
De Palo will start on pole though, as Deligny carries across a four-place grid penalty from the previous round at Barcelona. R-ace’s Akshay Bohra will join De Palo on the front row.
The other title contenders, Prema’s Freddie Slater and Van Amersfoort Racing’s Pedro Clerot, will start from row two.
De Palo was never headed in group B, which was on track first, although Clerot ran him very close as he came within 0.007s of his pace with a late improvement.
After De Palo had broken into the 1m34s earlier on, Clerot had been just 0.031s slower than him.
VAR’s Dion Gowda and Race Performance Motorsport’s debuting James Egozi briefly jumped into the top four but had their laptimes deleted for track limits abuse, which was a recurring problem across the field.
ART Grand Prix’s Evan Giltaire went third fastest, as De Palo set new benchmarks in two sectors and improved his fastest lap to 1m34.933s. Giltaire was another to improve later on but remained third.
Egozi, who had been languishing in last place without a representative laptime, finally managed to keep within the white lines at the end of jump up to fourth place ahead of Gowda.
Bohra set the pace initially in group A with a 1m35.170s, with Deligny over 0.7s slower than him and then knocked down the order by having his fastest lap deleted for trackl limits abuse.
Deligny improved next time by to go fastest, and Slater moved up to third. On his final lap, Deligny went quickest in sector one but ran wide at turn eight and aborted his effort while Slater was unable to improve.
Jin Nakamura completed a strong session for R-ace with fourth in the group ahead of ART Grand Prix’s Taito Kato.
Qualifying results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Group B | Group A |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Enzo Deligny | R-ace GP | 1m34.897s | |
| 2 | Matteo De Palo | Trident | 1m34.933s | |
| 3 | Akshay Bohra | R-ace GP | 1m35.090s | |
| 4 | Pedro Clerot | Van Amersfoort Racing | 1m34.940s | |
| 5 | Freddie Slater | Prema | 1m35.124s | |
| 6 | Evan Giltaire | ART Grand Prix | 1m34.963s | |
| 7 | Jin Nakamura | R-ace GP | 1m35.347s | |
| 8 | James Egozi | R-P-M | 1m35.138s | |
| 9 | Taito Kato | ART Grand Prix | 1m35.389s | |
| 10 | Dion Gowda | Van Amersfoort Racing | 1m35.194s | |
| 11 | Kanato Le | ART Grand Prix | 1m35.426s | |
| 12 | Ruiqi Liu | Trident | 1m35.228s | |
| 13 | Rashid Al Dhaheri | Prema | 1m35.444s | |
| 14 | Kacper Sztuka | R-P-M | 1m35.314s | |
| 15 | Yuanpu Cui | Prema | 1m35.790s | |
| 16 | Nikita Bedrin | Sainteloc Racing | 1m35.322s | |
| 17 | Giovanni Maschio | R-P-M | 1m35.862s | |
| 18 | Hiyu Yamakoshi | Van Amersfoort Racing | 1m35.414s | |
| 19 | Michael Belov | CL Motorsport | 1m36.062s | |
| 20 | Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi | Trident | 1m35.592s | |
| 21 | Edu Robinson | G4 Racing | 1m36.444s | |
| 22 | Jack Beeton | Prema | 1m35.894s | |
| 23 | Newman Chi | CL Motorsport | 1m36.725s | |
| 24 | Saqer Al Maosherji | G4 Racing | 1m36.019s | |
| 25 | Yaroslav Veselaho | Sainteloc Racing | 1m37.389s | |
| 26 | Enea Frey | CL Motorsport | 1m36.195s | |
| 27 | Edouard Borgna | G4 Racing | 1m36.495s |