Camara controls the pace in FIA F3’s Imola practice session

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

FIA Formula 3 points leader Rafael Camara was quickest in free practice at Imola, which was shortened by a crash.

There were only six drivers setting laps through the first eight minutes of the 45-minute session, and DAMS’ Niko Lacorte led the way with a 1m38.752s.

As the track began to get busier, Van Amersfoort Racing’s Theophile Nael lowered the pace to 1m37.246s then Lacorte’s team-mate Matias Zagazeta set a 1m36.878s.

Lacorte responded 11 minutes in with a 1m35.682s, as Hitech GP’s drivers headed out and Gerrard Xie went straight into second place with a 1m36.415s lap.

VAR’s Ivan Domingues bettered Lacorte’s effort by 0.118 seconds, and now all but three drivers were on track.

That led to a lot of slow traffic to navigate, but did not prevent improvements as Nael set a 1m35.220s then moments later AIX Racing’s championship returnee Brad Benavides became the first driver to break into the 1m34s. His team-mate James Hedley, another returnee, went second fastest just before Domingues reclaimed first place with a 1m34.891s lap.

Prema’s Noel Leon was next to the top, setting a 1m34.740s, and that went unbeaten for a short while. Hedley improved in third 20 minutes in, then ART Grand Prix’s Tuukka Taponen got within 0.021s of Leon.

Laurens van Hoepen lowered the pace to 1m34.714s a minute later, but in the ART GP driver’s slipstream was Lacorte and he set a 1m34.604s. That was quickly bettered, with Martinius Stenshorne (Hitech) posting a 1m34.524s, then Roman Bilinski (Rodin Motorsport) lapping in 1m34.432s moments before Brando Badoer (Prema) recorded a 1m34.162s. Leon moved back up to second, 0.139s off his team-mate.

There was a flurry of improvements further down the order on the next laps, and MP Motorsport’s Alessandro Giusti jumped to second at the session’s halfway mark.

Camara was in the bottom half of the order, but then laid down a 1m33.433s that put him 0.729s clear of everyone else.

Stenshorne and MP’s Tim Tramnitz set 1m33.9s laps to become his closest opponenets, then Giusti got within 0.245s of the pace.

There were loads of personal bests set with 19 minutes to go, with Stromsted the highest places of those in sixth, but no challenge to Camara. He improved to 1m33.353s, a benchmark Tramnitz lapped 0.254s off before joining most of the field in pitting. Rodin’s drivers stayed out a little longer and got into the top 10, with then 13 minutes to go the track was empty.

The second runs were underway just three minutes later, and there were a heap of improvements with five minutes to go before Prema’s Ugo Ugochukwu crashed and caused session-ending red flags.

Camara set an unbeatable 1m33.091s, leading Giusti by 0.074s, Callum Voisin (Rodin), Mari Boya (Campos Racing) and Bilinski got within 0.6s of the pace, and improvements by Leon, Hedley, Bruno del Pino (MP) and Charlie Wurz (Trident) put them in the top 10. A second split first and 18th place.

Free practice results