Camara overcomes penalty to clinch sixth FREC win of 2024 at Imola

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Prema’s Rafael Camara overcame a penalty to take a championship lead-extending win in the first Formula Regional Europe race at Imola.

There changes to the grid after qualifying concluded, with Iron Dames’ Marta Garcia docked two places for ignoring yellow flags and Race Performance Motorsport’s Noah Stromsted getting a three-place penalty for driving excessively slowly.

Poleman Camara jumped the start, earning himself a five-second penalty, while fellow front row starter Alessandro Giusti was slow off the line and the ART Grand Prix driver immediately dropped behind R-ace GP’s Tuukka Taponen.

He fell behind Prema’s James Wharton and R-ace’s Enzo Deligny later on the opening lap, with Van Amersfoort Racing’s Ivan Domingues also briefly getting ahead after cutting the Villeneuve chicane entirely. However he then slowed to let multiple drivers back past.

Camara ended lap one one 0.859 seconds ahead of Taponen, and that gap was reduced to nothing halfway through lap two as the safety car was summoned due to an incident that led to Domingues and MP Motorsport’s Nikita Bedrin crashing out.

Racing resumed on lap five, and Wharton hassled Taponen while Camara sprinted away. He was 0.957s clear by the end of the lap, with no overtakes occurring in the top 20. There was drama on the car of R-ace’s Zachary David in eighth, as a cooler had been left in a sidepod and it flew out of his car while he was at racing speeds. Race control decided to hand him a drive-through penalty.

On a hot track there was much need for cleaner and cooler air, which led to most of the field fanning out.

MP’s Valerio Rinicella passed Prema’s Ugo Ugochukwu for 13th on lap six, and VAR’s Brando Badoer attacked Giusti for fifth from time to time but rather than forcing a mistake from his rival instead had his own wobbles when he got too close to the rear of the car ahead.

Giusti then started pressuring Deligny for fourth, but similarly found it harder to be mistake-free when he was on the tail of the car he was chasing.

On the last lap it did look like a change of position might happen near the front, as Taponen – who had dropped a wheel into the gravel consequence-free halfway through the race – had to defend second and Deligny had to defend fourth through the first two corners. They were successful in doing so, while Camara was over eight seconds up the road and celebrating his sixth win of 2024.

Trident’s Roman Bilinski finished an impressive eighth on his comeback from a broken spine, with Sainteloc Racing’s Matteo De Palo denying him seventh by 0.158s.

There were overtakes further down the order towards the end, as Stromsted got up into 11th ahead of KIC Motorsport’s Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi, Rinicella, ART GP’s Evan Giltaire and Ugochukwu. Bhirombhakdi and De Palo were put under investigation for forcing other drivers off track.

Race result (18 laps)