Camara grabs last-second FREC pole at drying Paul Ricard

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Prema’s Rafael Camara grabbed a dramatic last-second pole position for Formula Regional Europe’s second race at Paul Ricard.

Light rain at the start of qualifying meant Group A, who headed out to qualify after Group B, had better conditions

Camara had been languishing in eighth place in his group as Group A embarked on their final laps.

ART Grand Prix’s Alessandro Giusti appeared to have done enough, before Brando Badoer demoted him to second. But Camara had perfect timing to be the last driver to mee the chequered flag and beat Badoer by 0.105 seconds.

Trident’s Michael Belov topped Group B, and will line up alongside Camara in a repeat of race one’s front row.

In his group, Ugo Ugochukwu and Marta Garcia spun early on in the wet conditions. As the sun began to break through, laptimes tumbled, with Belov, R-ace GP’s Tuukka Taponen and ART GP’s Evan Giltaire fighting to be fastest.

Taponen went top with a 2m09.048s, then next time around Belov lowered the pace by over a second. The response from Taponen was compromised by encountering ART GP’s Lena Buhler in the final corners, and he was 0.076s shy of Belov.

Giltaire moved up to third, ahead of R-ace’s Enzo Deligny and Buhler. Taponen improved again on his sixth lap to go fastest with a 2m06.757s, and Belov then went quickest in sector three but his next laptime was 0.082s off what Taponen had managed.

Ugochukwu moved briefly into second before Belov put in a sensational final lap of 2m05.130s to head the group by 0.842s from Taponen. Iron Dames’ Doriane Pin was an impressive fourth, and after having his best times deleted for track limit infringements, Giltaire ended up in 10th.

The track was dry for the start of Group A’s session and laptimes were immediately faster than Group B’s. R-ace’s Zachary David held the initial advantage over Sainteloc Racing’s Enzo Peugeot, whose team-mate Matteo De Palo jumped to the top by half a second with three minutes to go with a 2m00.569s. Camara ran wide at turn 11 and was 16th, but then improved to second.

Badoer was the next driver to be on top, before Giusti delivered the first sub-2m00s lap with just over a minute to go. With a few seconds remaining, Badoer’s penultimate lap returned him to first place.

The drying track meant it was all about the last laps though, and Giusti took provisional pole before Badoer and then Camara set new benchmarks.

G4 Racing’s Kanato Le was fourth in the group, ahead of David and VAR’s Ivan Domingues, as the order changed dramatically as each driver met the chequered flag.

Qualifying results