Joshua Dufek finally gets his first FREC pole at Hungaroring

Photo: Diederik van der Laan / Dutch Photo Agency

Van Amersfoort Racing’s Joshua Dufek claimed his maiden Formula Regional European Championship pole position in qualifying for Sunday’s race at the Hungaroring.

The 34-car field was once again split into two and this time Group B headed out on track first.

ART Grand Prix’s Charlie Wurz was first to the top, then Sainteloc Racing’s returnee Esteban Masson, before Trident’s Nikil Bohra brought the pace down to 1m47.011s almost halfway through the 15-minute session.

With his third flying lap he improved to 1m40.627s, putting him ahead of team-mate Owen Tangavelou, R-ace GP’s race one poleman Martinius Stenshorne and Roman Bilinki in the third of Trident’s cars.

Stenshorne’s fourth lap put him to the top, with Race Performance Motorsport’s Maceo Capietto jumping from 16th to second.

The new benchmark laptime only stood for a few seconds before Prema’s Rafael Camara set a 1m40.099s to go fastest and his team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelloi rose up to third place.

Tangavelou and Bohra broke into the 1m39s with five minutes remaining, and a minute later G4 Racing’s Michael Belov jumped from 16th to first with a 1m39.887s lap.

With a minute to go Belov was already back down to seventh, with Antonelli setting a 1m39.505s to go top ahead of Capietto and Tangavelou. But Belov’s next lap, a 1m39.340s, returned him to first place as Bilinski went fourth fastest.

After the cheqeured flag another improvement from Bilinki brought him up to second, and Stenshorne left it late as possible for his final lap and it resulted in him topping the group by 0.009s.

Antonelli, Masson, Kirill Smal and Adam Fitzgerald were put under investigation for alleged impeding, with Wurz being particularly frustrated by Antonelli.

Prema’s Lorenzo Fluxa and Monolite Racing’s Giovanni Maschio traded top spot in the first half of Group A’s time on track, until VAR’s Kas Haverkort broke the 1m40s barrier.

R-P-M’s Santiago Ramos then went fastest, but Haverkort returned to first place with a 1m39.430s lap. He stayed on top until Dufek set a 1m39.319s with one-and-a-half minutes to go, and he improved to 1m39.003s after the chequered flag to secure pole by beating the fastest Group B time.

ART GP’s Laurens van Hoepen was briefly second in the final three minutes, but was shuffled to fourth as Dufek went fastest and R-ace’s Tim Tramnitz moved into third.

Dufek was not the only driver to improve after the chequered flag, as Fluxa jumped from sixth to second while Haverkort and Tramnitz set personal bests in third and fourth.

Qualifying results