Chloe Chambers picks up maiden F1 Academy pole in Jeddah

Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd

Campos Racing’s Chloe Chambers picked up her first F1 Academy pole in Jeddah qualifying.

She lapped 0.255 seconds faster than Prema’s points leader Doriane Pin in the 30-minute session, which was disrupted by an early red flag period.

A 40-minute free practice session took place earlier in the day. Pin edged MP Motorsport’s Maya Weug by 0.006s with a late 2m05.610s lap, then Weug responded before the chequered flag fell with a 2m05.387s to seal her place at the top of the timesheet.

Campos’s Alisha Palmowski came up just 0.03s short of Weug on her final effort to relegate Pin to third. Chambers was fourth ahead of ART Grand Prix’s Lia Block, with Rodin Motorsport’s Ella Lloyd sixth.

Lloyd posted an opening benchmark of 2m06.550s in qualifying despite locking up her front tyres heading into the final corner of the lap. Weug lowered the pace by half a second, and the session was red-flagged moments later due to Block crashing heavily after clipping the inside wall at the final turn.

Lloyd reclaimed the advantage with a 2m05.686s once the track returned to green, but Weug responded to go quickest once more by 0.051s while her team-mate Alba Hurup Larsen edged Palmowski to third.

Palmowski briefly moved to the top with her next effort only for Chambers to beat her by 0.323s. Chambers then extended her advantage by a further 0.019s with her next attempt, as Larsen also improved to replace Weug in third.

Chambers lapped quicker still with 10 minutes remaining, a 2m04.955s leaving her 0.244s clear of Palmowski’s own improved effort, and Lloyd took third away from Larsen.

Palmowski found 0.2s next time by but was still 0.063s shy of the pace. With another attempt she moved ahead, setting a 2m04.864s. Pin soon eclipsed that though by 0.048s and Weug remained fourth despite setting a new personal best.

Larsen climbed ahead of Weug and Chambers into third, only for the latter to respond with a 2m04.320s to displace Pin from the top by 0.255s. Palmowski tried to bring herself back into the fight for pole, but was forced to bail out of her penultimate lap after getting sideways and bouncing over a kerb as the final minute of qualifying began.

Weug took third away from Palmowski with her final lap by 0.020s. Larsen was just 0.010s shy of Palmowski in sixth, and Lloyd was shuffled back to seventh behind Prema’s Tina Hausmann despite improving as she met the chequered flag.

Rodin’s Emma Felbermayr provisionally took reversed-grid pole for race one on Saturday by setting the eighth quickest time. Prema’s Nina Gademan battled back pain – a legacy of her heavy testing crash in Jeddah earlier this month – to qualify ninth ahead of Rodin’s Chloe Chong.

Qualifying results