Photo: ACI Sport
Sebastian Wheldon claimed pole position, and a valuable two extra points, for the first Formula Regional Europe race at Hockenheim.
The MP Motorsport driver’s time of 1m34.353s from the first session on track was good enough to beat title rival Emanuele Olivieri’s best time from Group B by 0.071s.
With the two points gained for pole position, Wheldon narrows the gap to Olivieri to 18 points ahead of Saturday’s race.
Prema’s Kean Nakamura-Berta will start from the third row, having lost out to team-mate Tomass Stolcermanis in their session, while the fourth title contender, R-ace GP’s Rashid Al Dhaheri, will line up seventh.
Trident’s Maksimilian Popov set the opening pace in Group A with a 1m35.147s but his stay at the top was brief as Al Dhaheri moved to the top from Wheldon, although the Anglo-American’s time was subsequently deleted, dropping him back to 11th.
However, as the times tumbled G4 Racing’s Saqer Almaosherji briefly appeared at the top of the times before Wheldon and then Al Dhaheri reasserted themselves, with RPM’s Jan Przyrowski slotting into third.
Wheldon reclaimed top spot on his eighth lap with a purple third sector, as Przyrowski moved up to second thanks to a fastest overall time in the first sector. Both Popov and Al Dhaheri improved on their final laps, with the Trident man just claiming third spot.
Olivieri was immediately on the pace in Group B, putting in a 1m34.665s lap on his fifth tour to go top from MP Motorsport’s Newman Chi. Olivieri went faster still next time around before backing off to cool his tyres before a final attack.
Stolcermanis moved up to second, with Nakamura-Berta jumping ahead of RPM’s Miguel Costa to take third.
Despite pushing hard on his final two flying laps, Olivieri was unable to improve his time and fell just shy of Wheldon’s earlier effort overall.
Impressive Imola debutant, Oleksandr Bondarev ended up a disappointing 10th in Group A for Van Amersfoort Racing, having never featured among the leaders, with race debutant Ary Bansal two places higher on his FREC debut for CL Motorsport.
The second series debutant, Lewis Wherrell, currently second in British F4, ended up 13th in the second group, a respectable 0.763s behind Olivieri.
Wherrell has taken the RPM seat of series veteran Giovanni Maschio this weekend, with the Italian engaged in the ELMS, breaking a run of 77 consecutive races for the Italian dating back to the start of 2023.