This evening, the first qualifying sessions of the weekend took place at Spa-Francorchamps for round 4 of the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine. Santiago Ramos from Team RPM set the fastest time in Group A, but it was Tim Tramnitz, from R-ace GP, the driver who will sit on pole for Race 2.
Group A was the first to take the challenge to the track, and right from the start, the drivers tried to gain an advantage through slipstreaming. The session didn’t immediately heat up, with none of the drivers willing to give an advantage to the rivals. Kirill Smal from Monolite was among the first to go for a push lap, followed by Kas Haverkort from Van Amersfoort Racing and Santiago Ramos, who further lowered the benchmark. At the checkered flag, Santiago Ramos was the leader and provisional pole-sitter, improving his time on the final lap and setting the reference to beat at 2’15.453. Rafael Camara from Team Prema Racing, the Brazilian driver, followed in second place with a gap of 0.392. Third was Joshua Duerksen, the Paraguayan driver from Team Arden Motorsport, with a gap of 0.545. Lorenzo Fluxà, Prema Racing Spaniard flag bearer, secured the fourth position with a gap of 0.638 on the final lap of the session. Haverkort rounded up the top 5 in Group A with a gap of 0.725.
Group B brought the battle back on track after a short break, while in tomorrow’s session, that will draw the grid of Race 1, the order will be reversed. The second group on track today benefited from improved grip, as the first 17 cars laid down rubber on the track preparing the field. Tim Tramnitz began to lower the times in a tough battle with Andrea Kimi Antonelli, the Italian driver from Team Prema Racing. In the end, it was the German driver who prevailed, setting a time of 2’15.358 at the checkered flag. Antonelli finished second with a gap of 0.410. Third in the Group B qualifying, with a gap of 0.455, was the French driver Macéo Capietto from RPM. Hadrien David, making his return to the Formula Regional as a wild card for Team ART Grand Prix, secured fourth place with a gap of 0.655. Closing out the top 5 was Maya Weug, racing for KIC Motorsport, who completed her best lap with a gap of 0.813.
Tim Tramnitz: “I think we already started the weekend quite fast. Both the collective tests were pretty good, and also the pre-event test. In the end we just got a perfect car, and the lap was not too bad as well. I am really happy to comeback after a more difficult round in Hungary. This is a really nice track. It is a really special place, I think almost every driver like this track, me too. It’s always important to get good starts, but already in Hungary they were quite good. If I just continue with what I was doing before, it should be fine.”
Santiago Ramos: “It was a good lap. We proved that the car was fast in the second practice today. Yesterday we were a bit unlucky with the traffic, but we knew we had the pace. We just had to put the lap together. At the end was a proper lap, it was a shame we missed the pole, but it’s ok, still P2. The Team is up there, we know the car is quite fast. We had a bit of bad luck in the last weekends: in Hungary we had technical issue in quali 2, so that’s why we started more in the back; and then was the same in Barcelona, the same in Imola…we just hope tomorrow we can put it on pole and have 2 decent races, tomorrow and the day after.”
The Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine contenders will be back tomorrow to face again the challenge of the track considered to be the University of the F1 drivers. Friday, June 30th, begins with qualifying 2, with Group B on track from 9:45 to 10:00, and Group A following from 10:05 to 10:20. The second qualifying session will determine the grid for Race 1, set to start on Friday at 14:50 for 30 minutes + 1 lap. The last race of the weekend will take place on Saturday, July 1st, at 9:30, also lasting for 30 minutes + 1 lap of intense battles.
Both the qualifying sessions and the races of the weekend will be streamed live on the official Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine YouTube page (@formularegionaleubyalpine). Ticket info are available on www.spa-francorchamps.be
