Nael snatches final FREC pole of season from Camara at Monza

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Sainteloc Racing’s Theophile Nael continued his strong end-of-season form to snatch pole position for the final Formula Regional Europe race of the year at Monza on the final lap of qualifying.

Group A, second out on track on Sunday morning, produced a thrilling four-way battle for top spot, as Nael overhauled Prema’s Rafael Camara by just 0.006s in the final seconds to take his and his team’s maiden series pole position.

ART Grand Prix’s Alessandro Giusti will line up alongside his countryman on the front row after topping the wetter first session.

Group B encountered a damp track after further rain overnight, although thankfully the ending of summer time in Europe meant that it was at least light, unlike for Saturday morning’s aborted qualifying.

MP Motorsport’s Nikita Bedrin set the early pace, jumping to the top of the times with a 1m56.681s on his third lap, before improving by another half second next time around.

Race one winner Ugo Ugochukwu moved up to second, ahead of R-ace GP’s Enzo Deligny and Giusti.

Giusti, however, was picking up the pace, going second on his fifth lap, and then moving to the front with a 1m55.943s on his subsequent tour.

Prema’s James Wharton had been back in eighth but an improvement on lap six took him to third ahead of Bedrin.

However, a spin into the gravel at Parabolica from Bedrin prevented any further improvements, as the red flag came out to bring the session to an early conclusion.

As the cause of the stoppage, Bedrin saw his best lap time deleted, dropping him back to seventh and promoting Sainteloc Racing’s Matteo de Palo to fourth.

R-ace GP’s Tuukka Taponen was the first driver in Group A to dip below 1m57s on his second lap, to move 0.368s clear of Camara. Taponen improved again next time around as Camara failed to better his time after running wide at Lesmo.

The two Ferrari juniors, Taponen and Camara, running in close company on the drying track, were pushing each other to ever-faster times. Whenever Taponen upped the pace, Camara immediately snatched the place back, a 1m55.984s putting him back in front on his fourth lap.

Behind them, the Sainteloc Racing pair of Nael and Enzo Peugeot slotted into third and fourth, 0.2s behind Camara.

The battle at the front was intense. Taponen moved back to the top before Camara once again demoted him, his time of 1m55.580s beating Giusti’s best time to guarantee overall pole for Group A.

Camara, tucked in the tow from Taponen, lowered the best mark again on his sixth lap with a 1m55.308s, as Nael went ahead of Taponen for second.

Camara was clearly still pushing on his final lap, sliding through the Ascari chicane, but this time was unable to better his time.

Behind this pair, however, the Sainteloc duo timed their final runs to perfection, with Nael pipping Camara by just 0.006s. Peugeot edged out Taponen for third, with the top four exactly six tenths clear of Pedro Clerot in fifth.

Qualifying results