Emanuele Olivieri claimed his second pole position of the FIA FREC season at Imola. On home soil, the R-ace GP driver, racing under the ACI Team Italia banner, had already set the pace in the morning’s Free Practice session before recording the fastest time overall in Q1. Olivieri also collected two valuable points, moving to within 18 points of championship leader Kean Nakamura-Berta and five of both his teammate Rashid Al Dhaheri and Sebastian Wheldon, who are tied ahead of him in the standings.
PREMA Racing's Tomass Stolcermanis, who topped Group A, will line-up alongside Olivieri on the front row for the first of the weekend’s three races, ahead of G4 Racing’s Norwegian driver Marcus Saeter and Frenchman Alexandre Munoz of ART Grand Prix. Al Dhaheri and Nakamura-Berta were third and seventh respectively in their group, having been unable to improve in the closing seconds due to a red flag. Wheldon, meanwhile, set the third-fastest time in Group B.
GROUP A
Al Dhaheri was the first driver to set a representative time, posting a 1:39.659. CL Motorsport's Reno Francot moved into second, just 0.049s behind, before Munoz went quickest with a 1:39.580. Stolcermanis then went even faster, setting a 1:39.493 before the red flag brought the session to an early end. Munoz therefore slipped to second, 0.087s behind the PREMA Racing driver. Al Dhaheri finished third, followed by Francot and impressive debutant Oleksandr Bondarev for Van Amersfoort Racing. Championship leader Nakamura-Berta ended the session seventh, one place behind his teammate Salim Hanna.
GROUP B
Olivieri was the first driver to break the 1:40 barrier, going quickest with a 1:39.777. On his second push lap, the R-ace GP driver improved in all three sectors to set a 1:39.506. CL Motorsport's Jules Roussel slotted into second, more than two and a half tenths behind, while Wheldon climbed to third. ART Grand Prix’s Kabir Anurag then moved up to second. With two minutes and 30 seconds remaining, Olivieri improved once again, setting a 1:39.227 to beat Stolcermanis’ Group A benchmark and secure pole position. Saeter moved into second, although he remained 0.427s adrift. MP Motorsport’s Alexander Abkhazava initially went third, but was displaced in the closing stages by Wheldon and ART Grand Prix’s Mattéo Giaccardi.
Emanuele Olivieri (R-ace GP): "I’m very happy. After such a long break, I couldn’t have asked for a better way to return. The team and I worked really hard, and Imola is honestly one of my favourite circuits so it is great to have a car that gives me the confidence to push through every corner. Looking at the championship, it was obviously a very good qualifying session for us. I only scored two points today, though, and the big points will be awarded tomorrow. I’m very happy with today, but I’m already looking forward to the race."
Tomass Stolcermanis (PREMA Racing): "We had a good qualifying session, although there is always more performance to find. Tomorrow we will find out how well prepared we are. I didn’t have any expectations coming into the weekend because everyone had a month off during the summer break. I trained a lot and did plenty of preparation to make sure I was ready for this race. Qualifying has not always been easy for me, particularly putting the lap together and being immediately up to speed. Today we did a good job and the result was a little unexpected. The team did an amazing job in giving me a car that allowed me to drive with confidence and put together a good lap".
Action resumes tomorrow with the first of the weekend’s three races scheduled to get underway at 10:10 CEST. Race 2, featuring a partially reversed grid, will start at 16:30 CEST. Both races will be streamed live on the championship’s official YouTube channel, @fiaformularegionaleu.
Results are still provisional
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