The weather conditions on Friday’s final tests were in stark contrast to those on the first official day of free practice and qualifying. The sun gave way to rain-laden clouds. Grooved tires were of course the order of the day for free practice, with Rafael Perard leading the way ahead of Alex Munoz, Malo Bolliet, Jules Roussel, Rintaro Sato (JPN) and Louis Iglesias.
The rain became heavier for qualifying, and many drivers were caught out by the poor grip of the track. On several occasions, race management had to bring out the red flag, forcing the drivers to adapt and show themselves capable of completing a warm-up lap followed immediately by a fast lap.
Pole was thus constantly changing hands. Jules Roussel, Rafael Perard, Arthur Dorison, Malo Bolliet and Guillaume Bouzar all climbed to the top of the standings. In the end, it all came down to the last restart, during each driver’s final lap. It had to be said that the rain had eased off, leaving the trajectories a little less wet.
Andy Consani made the most of the conditions, taking pole position in the final minutes with a time of 1:47.082, ahead of Alex Munoz, Jules Roussel and Monegasque Matteo Giaccardi. Rafael Perard salvaged 5th place ahead of Italy’s Niccolo Perri, one of the few drivers not to have competed in karting before switching to single-seaters. Roméo Leurs and Arthur Dorison took 8th and 9th respectively, ahead of Pablo Riccobono Bello and Lisa Billard. The latter two will be on the front row of Race 2, on the principle of the inverted grid for the top 10 finishers in qualifying. Japan’s Rintaro Sato was penalized and lost his initial place in the top-10. Several academicians announced as favourites started outside the top-10, making their task clearly more difficult.
In the classification of the best 2nd laps for each driver, which determines the starting grid for Race 3, there are a number of changes compared with the grid for Race 1. Alex Munoz appears in 1st position ahead of Jules Roussel and Thomas Senecloze, up 9 places on the best laps ranking. Guillaume Bouzar will start 4th in Race 3, ahead of Roméo Leurs, Arthur Dorison and Race 1 poleman Andy Consani.
