Antonelli loses FREC pole to Tramnitz after yellow flag violation

Photo: FRECA

Andrea Kimi Antonelli initially took pole for Sunday’s Formula Regional European Championship race at Hockenheim, but a decision from the stewards has instead handed it to Tim Tramnitz.

Newly crowned champion Antonelli topped the first qualifying group with a 1m36.798s laptime, putting him 0.011 seconds ahead of R-ace GP driver Tramnitz. In the second group, Tramnitz’s team-mate Martinius Stenshorne topped the times with a 1m36.819s lap to earn himself a spot on the front row.

But long after qualifying ended, a stewards’ decision came through saying Antonelli’s fastest lap had been deleted as he had failed to slow for yellow flags at the exit of turn 11. His second-best lap was slower than Tramnitz and Prema team-mate Rafael Camara’s best efforts, dropping him to third in the group and fifth on the grid.

Tramnitz therefore ended up taking pole by just 0.01s over Stenshorne, who had an advantage of 0.229s at the top of his group.

In Group A the top 10 were covered by 0.96s, with Trident’s Owen Tangavelou and Roman Bilinski fourth and fifth fastest.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Kas Haverkort was Stenshorne’s closest rival in Group B, and will line up fourth on the grid although he was the fifth fastest driver overall in qualifying.

There was then a gap of 0.391s to Trident’s Nikhil Bohra, who was third fastest in group, with G4 Racing’s free practice pacesetter Alessandro Giusti 0.025s slower than him to put himself eighth on the grid.

Qualifying results