Camara blitzes pole for first FREC race of 2024 at Hockenheim

Photo: FRECA

Prema’s Rafael Camara clinched pole position for the first Formula Regional European Championship race of 2024 at Hockenheim.

The highest-placed returning driver from last season topped the first qualifying group with the fastest lap of the event so far.

Prema and R-ace GP, the top two teams in 2023, locked out five of the six top spots on the grid and the latter outfit’s rookie Enzo Deligny will line up alongside Camara on the front row after topping the times in the second qualifying group.

The field was as usual divided into two for qualifying, with the draw based on times set in the second free practice session from Friday rather than the usual championship order.

R-ace’s Tuukka Taponen was second fastest overall, 0.134s slower than Camara and the only driver other than him to set a sub-1m35s lap, but will start from third place as he was in the poleman’s qualifying group.

The only interloper in the top six, ART Grand Prix’s Evan Giltaire, lines up fourth after a close fight for top spot in his group with Deligny.

After a lengthy delay caused by an incident in the preceding session on track necessitating barrier repairs, it was the fourth lap of qualifying before anybody posted a representative laptime.

Taponen set the initial pace, just ahead of Prema’s James Wharton and ART GP’s free practice pacesetter Alessandro Giusti.

Wharton moved to the front next time around by just 0.008s over Camara, with Taponen just 0.052s further back.

After a cooling down lap, Camara nailed his next flyer, going fastest in sector one en route to the first sub-1m35s lap of the weekend. Wharton was unable to improve, and was beaten by Taponen.

Giusti had to settle for fourth in the group after taking a trip through the gravel at turn 12 on his final lap.

An improvement on his final lap lifted Van Amersfoort Racing’s Pedro Clerot to fifth ahead of MP Motorsport’s Nikita Bedrin.

Deligny was immediately to the fore in the second group, posting a 1m35.515s on his fourth lap, and was never headed. He lowered his best time by 0.045s three laps later to make sure of top spot. Giltaire failed to improve on his final push laps after getting up to second and was just 0.062s slower than Deligny.

Prema’s Ugo Ugochukwu held third for most of the session losing some of his laps due to track limits abuse, then was demoted in the closing stages by impressive late laps from R-ace’s Zachary David and VAR’s Ivan Domingues.

Iron Dames’ Doriane Pin will start from 18th on her and the team’s debut, with team-mate Marta Garcia 27th.

The third F1 Academy graduate on the grid, Lena Buhler, will line up at the back of the grid.

Qualifying results