QUALIFYING: Camara leads Invicta 1-2 in Monza

Rafael Câmara secured pole position for Invicta Racing by less than a tenth over teammate Joshua Duerksen. The Brazilian delivered a 1:31.326 on his penultimate attempt and nobody could beat him to the Aramco Pole Position Award. Alexander Dunne completed the top three for Rodin Motorsport.

Dunne was fastest in Practice but his first effort was undone by a lock-up into the Ascari chicane that sent him skipping across the gravel, leaving him to regroup for his next attempt.

Noel León set the provisionally fastest lap but that was beaten by Duerksen with a 1:31.707 to put the Invicta driver ahead of the Mexican by just under two-tenths.

Dunne launched into a second attempt on his first set of Supersofts but went deep into Turn 1, and he abandoned his lap once more.

León found an improvement but this time it was the Invicta of Câmara that demoted him from top spot, with the Brazilian setting a 1:31.326 to go provisionally fastest.

Duerksen and Nikola Tsolov followed their teammates in third and fourth respectively at the halfway stage, with Oliver Goethe and Gabriele Minì fifth and sixth for MP Motorsport.

Dunne went for a third attempt on his first set of tyres and he delivered a time good enough to go fourth without a tow for the majority of his lap.

Drivers returned to the circuit on fresh tyres with just over five minutes remaining of the session for their final flying laps.

The majority opted to run through the pit lane in order to get ideal track position and gain a tow, though several remained on circuit including Championship leader Tsolov in a separate smaller group of cars headed by PREMA Racing’s Mari Boya.

Roman Bilinski passed everyone and he launched into his final attempt at the front of the queue, while there was plenty of squabbling for position behind him with less than a minute to go.

Martinius Stenshorne went up to third for Rodin Motorsport while teammate Dunne found a time good enough for second, but was subsequently demoted to P3 by Duerksen.

It left Invicta 1-2 on the grid with Câmara on pole. León was fourth ahead of Stenshorne who wound up fifth.

Tsolov finished up sixth ahead of Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, Ritomo Miyata, Oliver Goethe and John Bennett in the top 10.

The FIA Formula 2 Sprint Race around Monza is scheduled to get underway at 14:15 local time on Saturday, with the Briton set to go from reverse grid pole.