Rafael Camara has shown great determination in recovering from an incident that compromised his qualification to achieve his first pole position in Formula 2 during the Monaco Grand Prix.
After breaking the suspension of his car on the first lap of qualifying, the Brazilian driver from Campos Racing achieved a spectacular time that placed him ahead of all competitors, including Nikola Tsolov, who set the best time in his group, but it was not enough to surpass Camara.
The qualifying session was divided into two groups, and all drivers opted to do three preparation laps to ensure their supersoft tires were in the best performance window. Camara led the start of his long runs, showing competitive pace until he hit the wall on the last corner, forcing him to return to the pits to repair the left rear suspension.
During this break, Alex Dunne from Rodin Motorsport set a reference time of 1m22.427s, placing him ahead of Sebastian Montoya from Prema. While Camara was in the pits, Dino Beganovic from DAMS surprised with a time of 1m21.947s, momentarily taking the lead.
An incident involving John Bennett from Trident caused the first red flag, allowing Camara to return to the track with four minutes remaining in the session. With only a few seconds left, Noel Leon set two quick sectors but hit the wall at the pool chicane. However, he achieved a time of 1m21.595s that placed him provisionally in first place.
With the suspension repaired, Camara recorded a time of 1m20.923s, which catapulted him to the pole in front of other drivers who could not surpass him. Dunne was close to taking this position, but another incident at the last turn left him out by just one-tenth of a second, while Beganovic secured third place with a final time of 1m21.180s.
In the second group, Tsolov clocked the best time at 1m21.053s, but it was also not enough to dethrone Camara. In the end, the Brazilian achieved his first pole position of the season after a complicated start, with Tsolov alongside him and Dunne and Martinius Stenshorne from Rodin Motorsport closing the second row.
Qualifying Results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Group A | Group B | Laps |
| — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 1 | Rafael Camara | Invicta Racing | 1m20.923s | | 9 |
| 2 | Nikola Tsolov | Campos Racing | | 1m21.053s | 11 |
| 3 | Alex Dunne | Rodin Motorsport | +0.110s | | 12 |
| 4 | Martinius Stenshorne | Rodin Motorsport | | +0.221s | 11 |
| 5 | Dino Beganovic | DAMS | +0.176s | | 11 |
| 6 | Kush Maini | ART Grand Prix | | +0.285s | 10 |
| 7 | Gabriele Mini | MP Motorsport | +0.257s | | 12 |
| 8 | Roman Bilinski | DAMS | | +0.309s | 11 |
| 9 | Noel Leon | Campos Racing | +0.672s | | 10 |
| 10 | Joshua Duerksen | Invicta Racing | | +0.504s | 11 |
| 11 | Ritomo Miyata | Hitech | +0.881s | | 10 |
| 12 | Oliver Goethe | MP Motorsport | | +0.620s | 11 |
| 13 | Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak | ART Grand Prix | +0.922s | | 11 |
| 14 | Colton Herta | Hitech | | +0.719s | 11 |
| 15 | Sebastian Montoya | Prema Racing | +0.947s | | 11 |
| 16 | Nico Varrone | Van Amersfoort Racing | | +0.766s | 11 |
| 17 | John Bennett | Trident | +1.741s | | 8 |
| 18 | Mari Boya | Prema Racing | | +1.317s | 11 |
| 19 | Rafael Villagomez | Van Amersfoort Racing | +1.927s | | 12 |
| 20 | Emmo Fittipaldi | AIX Racing | | +1.355s | 12 |
| 21 | Cian Shields | AIX Racing | +2.154s | | 12 |
| | Laurens Van Hoepen | Trident | | No time | 2 |
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
SourceID: SRC_ac7186de70dcef12887ac592aa82fb9ee2fc5ac9