VAR’s Clerot and Yamakoshi fill front row for FREC race two at Zandvoort

Photo: ACI Sport

Pedro Clerot took his second Formula Regional Europe pole of the weekend at Zandvoort as Hiyu Yamakoshi completed a front row lockout for Van Amersfoort Racing on home soil.

Prema’s Freddie Slater will line up third for race two, with R-ace GP’s Enzo Deligny alongside him on row two.

The Dutch coast’s unpredictable weather again posed additional challenges, with a shower 10 minutes before the start of qualifying necessitating a change to wet tyres for Group B’s drivers who were first on track.

Slater set the early pace of 1m42.832s on the wet track, over 1.7 seconds clear of R-ace’s Jin Nakamura, who impressed throughout the session.

While Slater was unable to improve on subsequent laps, Nakamura closed to within 0.011s of him and Clerot swapped third with his team-mate Dion Gowda. The slippy conditions almost led to one of the VAR drivers finding the gravel at Tarzan.

ART Grand Prix’s Evan Giltaire and Taito Kato made an early pitstop but once out on wets were soon on the pace and Giltaire jumped to third.

As the track dried Clerot moved to the top, with Nakamura in second, before Slater responded with the first sub-1m41s lap to briefly hold top spot by 0.3s.

Slater was unable to improve on his final lap, and Clerot snatched pole after improving in the middle and final sectors to set a 1m40.144s.

Giltaire’s challenge for pole fell foul of a trip through the gravel at the Hans Ernst Chicane as he pushed to the limit.

By the start of Group A’s session, the track looked to be ready for slick tyres, but the changeable conditions again disrupted the plans as another shower blew across the circuit, leaving those who had gambled on slicks to flounder.

At one point, Akcel GP’s wet-shod Aditya Kulkarni was surprisingly seven seconds clear of Trident’s slick-shod championship leader Matteo De Palo.

Other drivers pitted so they could switch to wet tyret, and laptimes soon tumbled. Prema’s Jack Beeton was the first to beat Kulkarni, but it was Deligny and Yamakoshi who had the pace to battle for pole as the track began to dry again.

Deligny went fastest with a 1m42.590s, before Yamakoshi bettered him, with the pattern repeating itself next time around.

The pace was being lowered with each lap, and Yamakoshi bettered each of Deligny’s improvement when he crossed the line. At the end of the session he was on top with a 1m41.209s, leading Deligny by 0.407s but trailing Clerot’s benchmark by 1.065s.

Deligny is under investigation for an unsafe release, and only held on to second in his group by 0.025s over team-mate Akshay Bohra.

After his brief spell in the limelight, Kulkarni ended qualifying as the slowest driver.

Qualifying results