Practice-
Rafael Camara and Trident started 2025 on the front foot, going quickest in Free Practice around the Albert Park circuit.
The Scuderia Ferrari Driver Academy talent set a 1:34,652 just before a red flag stopped the session later on.
He finished ahead of MP Motorsport’s Tim Tramnitz in second and Mari Boya of Campos Racing in third.
It was Rodin Motorsport’s Louis Sharp who got the ball rolling by setting a 1:38.676 and the early time to beat, before lowering that to a 1:37.009 on his next attempt.
Teammate, Roman Bilinski improved on that effort, but Hitech TGR driver, Joshua Dufek set the next benchmark time, 1:36.384 putting him 0.2s ahead of the Rodin in second position. He then lowered his best on the following lap to go onto a 1:35.402.
Mari Boya joined him shortly afterwards, moving himself up to second, just 0.007s adrift of Camara, while his Campos Racing teammate Nikola Tsolov went third quickest behind him.
Tramnitz then took over at the top next for MP, 1L34.892 good enough to better the Brazilian by 0.009s, as the session ticked to the final 15 minutes.
There was one final change of the leaderboard with Camara saving his best effort for last and setting a 1:34.652 to retake top spot.
But the session came to an early end as Louis Sharp stopped on the track ahead of Turn 4 bringing out the Red Flags with five minutes to go.
Qualifying-
It was a perfect Friday in Melbourne for Rafael Camara as he topped both Practice and Qualifying, earning the first pole position of 2025.
He set a 1:34.999 to lead teammate Noah Stromsted in a great day for Trident. Theophile Nael wound up third, but ended the session under investigation for an unsafe release.
Installation laps complete and it was Roman Bilinksi that set the benchmark time initially with a 1:36.125 for Rodin Motorsport.
Two purple sectors by Camara put him in contention until he caught traffic in the final sector and instead slotted into second less than a tenth back.
Trident teammate Stromsted then went fastest overall to become the first driver in the 1:35s in qualifying.
Nikita Bedrin put AIX Racing top of the pile with 10 minutes gone, 1:35.873 the fastest time to beat, while Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak and Ugo Ugochukwu improved to go into the top five in third and fourth respectively.
After waiting for clear track, MP Motorsport’s Tim Tramnitz moved into contention to go third fastest, before Camara strung together a traffic-free lap to storm to P1, half a second clear of anybody else.
With under 10 minutes to go, the majority of the field then returned to the circuit on fresh tyres for their final attempts of the session.
There was only five minutes left on the clock when Brando Badoer found the barriers on the exit of Turn 2, requiring a red flag to remove his car from the track.
The full top 10 are- Pole: Camara, P2: Stromsted, P3: Nael, P4: Bedrin, P5: Tramnitz, P6: Wurz, P7: Inthraphuvasak, P8: Ugochukwu, P9: Stenshorne and P10: Bilinski.
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