Photo: ACI Sport
US Racing’s Akshay Bohra headed both Italian Formula 4 qualifying sessions at Paul Ricard, but did not claim pole for all three races.
Bohra will start the first two races from pole with team-mate Jack Beeton alongside him, as the Australian was second fastest in both sessions, with Van Amersfoort Racing’s Hiyu Yamakoshi taking two third places.
Prema struggled to match their rivals, with a best qualifying result of fourth with Alex Powell in Q1 and Freddie Slater in Q2.
However, Slater will start Sunday’s third race from pole position courtesy of setting the fastest second-best time across the two sessions.
Championship leader Slater failed to post a competitive time in Q1, as a slow puncture left him struggling for pace. It leaves him lots of work ahead in race one, as he starts from 24th on the grid.
Kai Daryanani brought out an early red flag in Q1 before anyone had had the chance to lap at pace. Once the session restarted Beeton topped the times, with Powell in second.
However, Bohra popped in a 2m04.590s with four minutes remaining, and that remained out of reach for his rivals.
Yamakoshi jumped up to third ahead of the third US Racing entry of Matheus Ferreira, before a last lap improvement took Powell back into the top four.
Slater languished in the lower orders for the duration of the session as his tyre slowly deflated, possibly due to debris from Daryanani’s car, and with two minutes remaining was 29th. He finally set a flying lap on his final tour, but it was ultimately only good enough to move up five spots.
Beeton and Bohra immediately resumed their battle at the front as the second qualifying session got underway, the former going top with a 2m04.583s, before Bohra took over at the front by 0.182s with four minutes remaining. Yamakoshi again qualified, just 0.021s behind Beeton.
After changing tyres for the second session, Slater was quickly into the top two, but was unable to match the pace of the US Racing drivers. Despite an improvement on his final lap, he had to settle for fourth, heading a four-car Prema train, with Rashid Al Dhaheri in fifth, followed by Tomass Stolcermanis and Powell.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Akshay Bohra US Racing 2m04.590s
2 Jack Beeton US Racing +0.147s
3 Hiyu Yamakoshi Van Amersfoort Racing +0.222s
4 Alex Powell Prema +0.433s
5 Matheus Ferreira US Racing +0.438s
6 Kean Nakamura Berta Prema +0.510s
7 Rashid Al Dhaheri Prema +0.529s
8 Dion Gowda Prema +0.532s
9 Gustav Jonsson Van Amersfoort Racing +0.551s
10 Tomass Stolcermanis Prema +0.669s
Race 2 grid
1 Bohra 2m04.401s
2 Beeton +0.182s
3 Yamakoshi +0.203s
4 Freddie Slater Prema +0.233s
5 Al Dhaheri +0.406s
6 Stolcermanis +0.449s
7 Powell +0.497s
8 Jonsson +0.532s
9 Gianmarco Pradel US Racing +0.540s
10 Ferreira +0.665s
Race 3 grid
1 Slater 2m04.641s
2 Bohra +0.127s
3 Beeton +0.189s
4 Powell +0.301s
5 Al Dhaheri +0.384s
6 Yamakoshi +0.395s
7 Stolcermanis +0.526s
8 Gowda +0.547s
9 Jonsson +0.563s
10 Nakamura +0.590s