Câmara takes fourth F2 pole of the season at Spa

Rafael Câmara took his fourth pole position of the Formula 2 season in a closely fought qualifying session at Spa-Francorchamps, beating Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak by just 0.039s. With the drivers having one lap at the end of the session, the Invicta Racing driver completed a 1m56.306s to beat his ART Grand Prix rival, with Alexander Dunne placing third for Rodin Motorsport.

Despite rain being in the air at the start of the session, the teams fitted on the supersoft tires. But just as the drivers were about to set off on their flying laps, Noel León spun at Raidillon. This brought out the red flags, although the Campos Racing rookie was able to restart his car before bringing it back into the pitlane.

Nikola Tsolov then went fastest with the session back underway, but was quicky demoted to P2 once Dunne crossed the line. The Irish driver was 0.265s quicker than his rival on a 1m57.124s. The top two returned to the pitlane but others chose to continue on for a second push lap. Câmara found time on his next attempt to go up to P2, albeit 0.223s away from Dunne’s time.

Oliver Goethe also improved to go up to fourth ahead of Kush Maini, as all 22 drivers returned to the pitlane. With less than 10 minutes left, the drivers returned with a new set of supersofts bolted on to their cars for their final laps.

But just as they set off on their flying laps, the red flags were waved again with Laurens van Hoepen having stopped down the start/finish straight. With the Trident car clear the session resumed with under three and half minutes left, meaning that each driver would get one final lap.

There were several improvements across the line including from Câmara, who went fastest on a 1m56.306s. Dunne then completed his lap but was just under two-tenths away in second. He was then demoted to third by Inthraphuvasak, who was just 0.039s from beating the Invicta driver.

This gave Câmara pole position for the fourth time this season, ahead of Inthraphuvasak and Dunne with Tsolov in fourth and John Bennett in fifth. Dino Beganovic was sixth ahead of Joshua Duerksen and DAMS Lucas Oil teammate Roman Bilinski. Martinius Stenshorne finished ninth, as León rounded out the top 10. Hitech's Colton Herta placed 18th in the 22-car field.

León is set to start from reverse grid pole in Saturday’s Spa-Francorchamps Sprint Race, with lights out set for 2:15pm local time.

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