Sebastian Wheldon claimed the final pole position of the FIA Formula Regional European Championship season at Hockenheim. The MP Motorsport driver set a 1:34.271 in Group A to take two valuable points ahead of this afternoon’s four-way title decider.
PREMA Racing’s Kean Nakamura-Berta will line up alongside Wheldon on the front row after topping Group B by just 0.003s from championship leader Emanuele Olivieri. The R-ace GP driver heads into the final race on 200 points, seven clear of Nakamura-Berta. Wheldon is third on 184, with Olivieri’s team-mate Rashid Al Dhaheri, who finished seventh in his qualifying group, is fourth on 180.
Yesterday’s Race 1 winner Jan Przyrowski also impressed, finishing second to Wheldon in Group A.
GROUP B
Group B was first out on track for the final qualifying session of the season. Olivieri set the early pace with a 1:34.651, putting him 0.222s clear of MP Motorsport’s Zhenrui Chi and more than three tenths ahead of his R-ace GP team-mate Yuki Sano.
With just over four minutes remaining, Olivieri improved in the second and third sectors to lower the benchmark to 1:34.406. Sano moved up to second with a 1:34.543, while Nakamura-Berta was third, 0.297s off the pace. Nakamura-Berta then posted a 1:34.446 to close to within 0.040s of Olivieri. On his final flying lap, the PREMA driver found more time, setting a 1:34.403 to take top spot by just 0.003s. Sano finished third ahead of Chi and Nakamura-Berta’s team-mate Tomass Stolcermanis.
GROUP A
Wheldon opened with a 1:34.434, with RPM’s Przyrowski immediately moving into second, just 0.034s behind. MP Motorsport’s Alexander Abkhazava then took P2 with a 1:34.456, before Przyrowski responded with a 1:34.436. Wheldon improved to a 1:34.420 to strengthen his hold on the top spot.
As the clock ran down, Przyrowski went quickest with a 1:34.356. Wheldon had one final flying lap, though, and delivered a 1:34.271 to reclaim P1 and secure his fourth pole of the season and his second in a row, leaving Przyrowski second by 0.085s. Abkhazava finished third, ahead of Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Ninovic and ART Grand Prix’s Alexandre Munoz.
Sebastian Wheldon (MP Motorsport): "Yesterday was frustrating, especially given the pace we had, but today is a new day. We’re starting from the front row again, so the aim is to get a good start and see what we can do in the race. The team have given me a really good car. I’ve felt confident since the first Free Practice session, and I can’t thank MP Motorsport enough. Now we need to make the most of it in the race.”
Kean Nakamura-Berta (PREMA Racing): "Qualifying has been the most important part of the weekend throughout this championship. We’ve seen it everywhere: even with the new push-to-pass system, you still need to be at the front. It’s really good to be back on the front row. We’ve struggled a little over the past two weekends, but I think we’ve finally moved in the right direction. I put a few good sectors together, although it was incredibly close out there. I think we maximised what we had, and we’ll give it our best later today.”
The final race of the season, which will decide the title, gets underway this afternoon at 16:15 CEST and will be streamed live on the Championship’s official YouTube channel, @fiaformularegionaleu.
Results are still provisional
