Ugochukwu quickest in wet pre-event FREC test session at Monza

Photo: Dutch Photo Agency

Prema’s Ugo Ugochukwu was fastest in the wet Formula Regional European Championship test session at Monza on Thursday.

The four-hour session took place in the afternoon, and the wet track meant that many drivers skated off at the first corner and the della Roggia chicane. As a result, a lot of laptimes were deleted for track limits abuse.

There were six red flag periods that interrupted the running, taking away over a quarter of the possible track time at 62 minutes. Yellow flags waved during other spells, limiting the chances for drivers to set flying laps.

KIC Motorsport’s Nandhavud Bhirombhakdi was quickest at first, posting a 2m06.608s four minutes in. R-ace GP’s Tuukka Taponen knocked 3.5 seconds off that benchmark, his team-mate Zachary David went a further 0.776s faster than that then improved again to 2m00.579s.

The response from Bhirombhakdi was to snatch back top spot by 0.093s, but his time ahead was shortlived as David set two more fastest laps to bring the pace down to 2m00.024s.

ART Grand Prix’s Alessandri Giusti was the first driver to break the two-minute barrier, but his best effort got beaten by 0.409s when R-ace’s Enzo Deligny set a 1m59.418s.

The Sainteloc Racing drivers then came to the fore, with Enzo Peugeot lapping in the 1m58s twice and team-mate Theophile Nael then beating him with a 1m58.346s.

Half a minute later Prema’s champion Rafael Camara posted a 1m57.152s, going fastest by 1.194s and doing enough to stay top of the times for 39 minutes.

He was eventually bettered by Van Amersfoort Racing’s Brando Badoer, who broke into the 1m56s, then a flurry of improvements came in as the track became busy. Within two minutes there had been new benchmarks set by Ugochukwu, MP Motorsport’s Nikita Bedrin and ART GP’s Evan Giltaire, with Bedrin emerging fastest from that group with a 1m56.026s.

The next gain in pace was another 10 minutes later, as VAR’s Pedro Clerot recorded a 1m55.930s to edge ahead. That benchmark stood for almost six minutes, and moments after he lost first place to Ugochukwu he regained it with a 1m55.382s effort.

Ugochukwu stayed on track and got faster, improving to 1m55.247s two laps later and then finding another 0.056s to put in a lap that would not be beaten over the next hour-and-a-half as the track stayed wet.

Test results