Isack Hadjar and Zane Maloney will each start a race from pole position at the Circuit de Monaco after Qualifying for the third round of the Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine season took place on Friday morning.
Just one Qualifying session for the weekend would set both grids, with the thirty-two-car field split into two sections. The fastest driver in each session would start from pole position for one of the two races on Saturday or Sunday.
Due to the limit on cars allowed in each race, only the eleven fastest drivers from each group would race in both races, as would the fastest twelfth faster driver across the two groups. Everyone else will start only one of the races.
Group A saw R-ace GP’s Hadjar dominate, with a time of 1:29.727 seeing him the only driver to dip underneath the eighty-nine second barrier. He outpaced Paul Aron by almost three-tenths of a second, with the Estonian finishing second in the group, just ahead of KIC Motorsport’s Patrik Pasma.
Fourth in the group was Prema Powerteam’s David Vidales, who finished just 0.005 seconds behind Pasma despite having a moment at turn one that saw him run into the run-off area. Van Amersfoort Racing’s Mari Boya ended fifth ahead of ART Grand Prix’s Gabriele Mini and Monolite Racing’s Pietro Delli Guanti.
Emidio Pesce suffered a spin that caused a brief yellow flag period at the second chicane of the swimming pool complex, with the DR Formula driver finding himself on the wrong side of the cut off point when the chequered flag fell.
Group B was much faster as the track conditions improved, and it was Maloney, also of R-ace GP, who set the pace with a 1:28.893. He finished just ahead of team-mate Hadrien David, with R-ace GP looking to continue their strong run in Monaco having won there the past three years in Formula Renault Eurocup.
Arden’s Alex Quinn was the best placed non-R-ace GP driver in third place, with MP Motorsport’s Franco Colapinto fourth ahead of Arden’s William Alatalo and current championship leader Grégoire Saucy of ART Grand Prix.
From the sixth row of the grid, the Swiss racer is going to be hard pressed to continue his strong run that has seen him win three of the first four races of 2021. He finished just ahead of team-mate Thomas Ten Brinke and FA Racing’s Andrea Rosso.
Ferrari Driver Academy member Dino Beganovic was lucky to make it into both races, with the Prema driver finishing twelfth fastest in Group B. Luckily, this made him faster than Nicola Marinangeli, who finished twelfth in Group A.
It was not a good session for G4 Racing, with both Axel Gnos (St Devote) and Alessandro Famularo (Portier) both crashing out. They ended up slowest overall and will start only one of the two races.
Hadjar will start race one on Saturday from pole position ahead of Maloney, while the positions will be reversed for race two. Everyone behind Hadjar in Group A will start on the Frenchman’s side of the grid on Saturday, with those in Group B alongside, with the positions again reversed for Sunday’s second race.