Rafael Câmara snatched pole off of teammate Joshua Dürksen with a scorching 1:31.326s lap, beating Luke Browning’s 1:32.390s pole lap last year by over a second.
Not only setting himself up for the best starting position on Sunday’s Feature Race, the Brazilian also adds 2 points to his current tally, shrinking the gap between himself and championship leader Nikola Tsolov.
A session which seemed to be going the way of Invicta from the very start, the Ferrari Junior set an early benchmark, with Noel León and teammate Dürksen behind, with Red Bull Junior Nikola Tsolov sealing the top four.
The session got off to a very quiet start, taking over six minutes before any action took place in the pit lane, where drivers prepared for a crucial out lap on a 56°C track.
Though, when just five minutes remained of the 30 minute session, all 22 cars were out in a frenzy to try steal pole off of the dominant Invicta pair. Mari Boya led the pack around the 11 Turn circuit.
Yet, not wanting to give a crucial tow to anyone else, the Spaniard maintained his slow pace until DAMS driver Roman Bilinski overtook him and led everyone across for their final blazing shot at pole, with just a minute and 30 seconds left.
With Bilinksi’s sudden charge, all other 21 cars set off, with the likes of Alex Dunne still hesitant and slow to begin their final lap, with this incident at Turn 11 now being investigated.
However, this late final run had played perfectly into the hands of many, notably Martinius Stenshorne, who quietly yet confidently maneuvered his way around the track, and Alex Dunne, who had jumped to P2 on the leaderboard.
This Rodin glory wasn’t for long though, as Dürksen quickly joined his teammate on the front row and Campos Racing’s Noel León jumped back up to fourth.
This left Nikola Tsolov in P6, four tenths off the pace, and home-hero Gabriele Minì down in eleventh, narrowly missing out on reverse-grid pole for Saturdays 21-lap sprint race.
Lucky for the Brit, John Bennett took P10, giving him a valuable chance at victory on Saturday, with Oliver Goethe starting alongside him.
You can catch tomorrow’s Sprint Race at 9:45AM local time.
Photo by Dom Gibbons – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images
