Giltaire beats Slater to FREC pole at chilly Monza

Photo: ACI Sport

ART Grand Prix’s Evan Giltaire will start the penultimate race of the Formula Regional European Championship from pole position.

Having recovered from a mid-season dip in form, Giltaire continued a strong performance in Friday’s practice to set the pace throughout his qualifying session, with a time 0.404 seconds faster than anybody else could manage.

Prema’s Freddie Slater will start alongside Giltaire on the front row, after topping the times in the slower Group A.

Slater’s title rivals, Trident’s Matteo De Palo and R-ace GP’s Enzo Deligny will share the fourth row for Saturday’s race.

Giltaire had already set the best time across Friday’s two practice sessions, leading the second session by 0.197s over Slater after Pedro Clerot had topped the slower morning running.

With air temperatures below 5°C on Saturday morning, the first group on track initially struggled to get their tyres warmed up sufficiently to go for a flying lap. Prema’s Jack Beeton was the first to make an attempt but aborted halfway through his lap.

The first proper laps came on the fourth tour with Slater immediately jumping to the top of the times with a 1m45.745s, with team-mate Rashid Al Dhaheri 0.296s back in second. Deligny improved up to third to split the Prema trio.

After backing off for a lap, Slater went faster by half a second on his sixth lap, with ART Grand Prix’s Taito Kato moving up to second.

Track conditions were still pricing tricky, particularly at the Ascari chicane which caught out Beeton, Al Dhaheri and series debutant Tomass Stolcermanis for R-P-M.

Slater, however, had more in hand and took the chequered flag with a lap of 1m44.576s, putting him 0.546s clear of Kato, with Al Dhaheri holding onto third from Deligny.

The second session was no quicker to ignite with ten minutes on the clock before any representative times were set. Trident’s Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi initially went top with a 1m46.600s, but Giltaire was on a flyer, crossing the line in 1m45.442s with De Palo slotting into second ahead of Van Amersfoort Racing’s Pedro Clerot.

Clerot improved on his next lap to go briefly fastest before Trident’s Ruiqi Liu demoted him.

However, Giltaire had kept enough in reserve to improve further. On his penultimate lap, he moved back to the front with a 1m44.698s, before going 0.526s quicker on his final lap to ensure top spot in the session.

Clerot was another to improve as the flag fell to move up to second ahead of Bhirombhakdi. Despite also setting his best time on the last lap, De Palo had to settle for fourth from another series debutant at R-P-M, Jan Przyrowski.

Qualifying results