Camara sets the pace again in FRegional Europe testing at Monza

Photo: FRECA

Rafael Camara continued his impressive pre-season Formula Regional European Championship form by topping testing at Monza.

The Prema driver – who was fastest at Paul Ricard last month – topped three of the four sessions held over Tuesday and Wednesday, and set his fastest lap in the final session.

R-ace GP’s Martinius Stenshorne led the way at first on Tuesday morning, setting an early 1m47.981s benchmark.

Less than half of the 31-car field had set a flying lap after 40 minutes of the three-and-a-half hour session had passed, and Stenshorne was the only driver to lap sub-1m48s until Race Performance Motorsport’s Santiago Ramos set a 1m47.838s an hour into running.

Ramos then moved ahead with a 1m47.554s, which was the benchmark until Arden’s Joshua Duerksen set a 1m47.532s.

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Kas Haverkort then set a 1m47.263s, with MP Motorsport’s Victor Bernier slotting into second place with a 1m47.494s.

Haverkort broke into the 1m46s soon after, and there were 10 drivers behind him that had lapped in the 1m47s after 90 minutes had passed.

R-P-M’s Adam Fitzgerald caused red flags to be brought out in the third hour, after a period in which VAR’s Joshua Dufek, Ramos and then R-ace’s Tim Tramnitz had spent time in second place.

Camara moved to the top following the restart, a 1m46.551s putting him 0.024 seconds ahead of Tramnitz and 0.213s ahead of ART Grand Prix’s Marcus Amand. The top 18 ended up being covered by a second.

Dufek and Haverkort were the drivers to beat in the afternoon before Camara set a 1m46.479s. That kept him on top all through the session’s second half, with team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli 0.116s behind in second place with a lap he also set fairly early on. Bernier and Haverkort completed the top four.

R-P-M’s Maceo Capietto was the fastest driver for much of Wednesday morning, just ahead of Antonelli and Bernier. ART GP’s Laurens van Hoepen moved into third place as the session reached its two-hour mark, and just after it Monolite Racing’s Kirill Smal went second fastest with a lap 0.037s slower than Capietto’s.

Smal, and KIC Motorsport’s Shannon Lugassy, had not recorded any laptimes the previous day.

Capietto was eventually usurped by Trident’s Nikhil Bohra, who remarkably lapped in the 1m45s. However that lap was later deleted for cutting a chicane, putting Tramnitz into first place with a 1m46.393s lap.

Antonelli and Capietto were second and third after three hours had passed, and an improvement in the final half-hour put Antonelli on by 0.063s over Tramnitz. Camara slipped into third ahead of Capietto.

The rubbering in of the track meant it looked like there would be a lot of improvements in the afternoon session, but only a handful set personal bests.

Ramos was fastest before the first red flag stoppage, then Camara came to the fore before the end of hour two ahead of team-mate Lorenzo Fluxa.

Lucas Medina then caused another stoppage, at which point it was a Prema 1-2-3. It stayed that way to the end, which came about early due to Lugassy bringing out red flags, with Camara just 0.003s ahead of Antonelli.

Tramnitz’s session three personal best put him third overall ahead of Fluxa, while Amand in 14th on the combined timesheet was the highest-placed driver to set their fastest lap on Tuesday.

Test results