Brando Badoer finally gets his first FREC pole by 0.043 seconds

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Brando Badoer claimed his first Formula Regional European Championship pole in qualifying for race two at Mugello.

Badoer had qualified second overall or been second fastest in his group for each of the previous four races, which led to four consecutive second place finishes, and the rookie finally broke his pole duck on his ninth attempt.

Group B headed out first in qualifying, and VAR’s Ivan Domingues led the way initially. KIC Motorsport’s Yujia Gao was then briefly on top before ART Grand Prix’s Yaroslav Veselaho went faster than him in his slipstream.

MP Motorsport’s Nikhil Bohra, ART GP’s Alessandro Giusti and R-ace GP’s race one polema Tuukka Taponen also topped the times but a representative pace was not truly set until eight-and-a-half minutes into the 15-minute session when Domingues posted a 1m43.994s.

His team-mate Pedro Clrot quickly beat that, but Domingues responded with a 1m42.953s. Prema’s James Wharton then edged ahead by 0.015 seconds, and three minutes later Clerot returned to the top with a 1m42.642s.

That was beaten by Taponen and then Wharton, whose 1m42.382s put him on top when the chequered flag waved. Clerot improved to get within 0.041s of him, with Taponen 0.134s behind and team-mate Zachary David 0.373s off the pace in fourth.

The debuting Alvaro Cho was quickest for G4 Racing at the start of Group A’s session, with laptimes immediately quicker than they had been at the beginning of Group A’s running.

Prema’s Ugo Ugochukwu and Rafael Camara brought the pace down into the 1m57s, then R-ace’s Enzo Deligny set a 1m55.533s.

Formula 4 graduate Cho surprised by then lowering the pace two more times, with his 1m44.346s the first representative laptime of the session.

He was down in 16th place just a few minutes later, with a flurry of improvements coming in before many drivers found the peak of their pace with six minutes to go.

Race Performance Motorsport’s Noah Stromsted knocked him off of top spot, then MP’s Valerio Rinicella was the first driver into the 1m42s. Badoer beat him by 0.294s, then Stromsted returned to the top with a 1m42.500s.

Wharton lost pole position when Badoer set a 1m42.292s, with points leader Camara also beating his Group B benchmark.

Ugochukwu was 0.107s off Badoer in third, with Stromsted and Sainteloc Racing’s Enzo Peugeot completing the top five in Group A.

Qualifying results