Stenshorne takes pole for FREC’s first Mugello race

Photo: FRECA

Martinius Stenshorne took pole for the first Formula Regional European Championship race of the weekend at Mugello. 

The championship leader beat R-ace GP team-mate Tim Tramnitz to top the first group in qualifying, with a laptime that could not be beaten in the second group. 

Prema’s Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who topped Group B, was 0.117 seconds slower than Stenshorne and will line up on the front row of the race one grid.

Laptimes dropped throughout the first qualifying group. It wasn’t long before the free practice pace was being matched, with Prema’s Rafael Camara the first to beat Stenshorne’s Friday benchmark. 

Camara was soon beaten by Tramnitz, who set the first sub-1m43s lap. The R-ace duo spent the closing minutes of their qualifying group knocking one another off the top spot. It was Tramnitz that was top of the order when the chequered flag waved, but Stensborne improved on his final lap to 1m42.305s, just 0.020s quicker than Tramnitz. 

Group B couldn’t find the same pace. Santiago Ramos and Kas Kaverkort both briefly held top spot before Antonelli jumped up the order. He set a 1m42.422s while in first place, but then could not improve on that in the last minutes and so Stenshorne was guaranteed pole.

Haverkort was second fastest in his group so will line up fourth ahead of Maya Weug, Owen Tangavelou and Josha Dufek, who briefly topped the times in Group A. 

Lorenzo Fluxa, Roman Bilinski and Ramos complete the top 10 on the grid for today’s race.

Qualifying results