Day 1-
PREMA’s Gabriele Mini led the opening session of the Monte Carlo weekend on a 1:27.400 in a session heavily disrupted by Red Flags.
Overcast conditions gave way to rain, ensuring the Italian’s early laptime remained quickest ahead of Leonardo Fornaroli and teammate Dino Beganovic.
There were rumbles of thunder as the session got underway though the drops of rain didn’t warrant a move away from dry tyres.
Rodin Motorsport’s Joseph Loake was the first driver of the weekend to use the run-off area at Sainte Devote before rejoining the track.
But moment’s later, AIX Racing’s Tasanapol Inthraphyvasak went off into the barriers at the same place to bring out an early Red Flag.
With running resumed 32 minutes remaining of the session.
However, another Red Flag quickly followed as Rodin’s Callum Voisin repeated the same incident as the first red flag at Turn 1 to half the session.
The field went back out onto track with 24 minutes remaining as Mini still led the way with a 1:27.400 for PREMA.
Rain began to fall though just as the first flying laps began and it was Sami Meguetounif that this time found the barriers.
With 13 minutes left of practice, the green light was back on and drivers ventured back out fitted with wet Pirelli tyres as the rain intensified, preventing any further improvements.
Day 2-
Group A-
The even numbered cars hit the track first with Oliver Goethe of Campos Racing leading the first 15 runners out onto the circuit.
P2 in the championship, Luke Browning set the first benchmark to beat laying down a 1:26.170. That was bettered by championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli right away, as he put in a 1:25.963 in the Trident.
Browning went quicker as the track continued to improve, recording a 1:24.532 on his next effort to return to P1. Whilst Fornaroli couldn’t get back on terms as he filtered through half a second down on the Brit’s lap.
With three minutes to go Browning found more pace to bring the time to beat down to a 1:24.230, Having gone purple in sector one, Gabriele Mini moved up into P2.
Under a minute left of qualifying and Boya was pushing to the absolute limit and tagged the inside wall at Turn 15, undoing his effort having gone fastest in sector one.
Browning had been up on his time and a fastest middle sector put him on course for an improvement. But exiting Turn 16 he tapped the wall, damaging his suspension and forcing him to abandon his lap.
Mini obliged and set the provision pole time moments later on a 1:23.942, 0.288s quicker than Brownings earlier time.
Group B-
Just at the flying laps were about to get underway, the Jenzer Motorsport car of James Hedley went into the barriers at Turn 1, losing his front win and bringing out the red flags.
Once the session resumed, it was Dino Beganovic that laid down the initial time to beat a 1:25.569, 0.249s quicker than next-best Mansell in the ART car.
Further improvements from the PREMA duo of Beganovic and Arvid Lindblad took the pace down to a 1:24.9 in the Briton’s favour, that was until Mansell leapfrogged the pair with a 1:24.921.
Joseph Loake popped his Rodin Motorsport car up to P2 as the drivers began to push the limits further approaching the closing stages.
Into the final two minutes of qualifying and Lindblad went quickest of all in the first sector, while teammate Beganovic was purple in the middle sector.
Just before the Swede could finish his lap, the Red Flags were out as Sebastian Montoya and Charlie Wurz were off at Turn 1.
The full top 10 overall is – P1: Mini, P2: Mansell, P3: Browning, P4: Lindblad, P5: Fornaroli, P6: Beganovic, P7: Boya, P8: Loake, P9: Leon and P10: Tramnitz.
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