Practice-
Campos Racing’s Nikola Tsolov topped Free Practice at Silverstone on a 1:45.847 to start his weekend on the front foot.
The Bulgarian was the only driver into the 1:45s, as Charlie Wurz followed in second for Trident ahead of Tim Tramnitz of MP Motorsport in third.
Nicola Lacorte led the way in the very early stages on a 1:49.859, while tyre preparation laps got underway for the rest of the field.
Campos went 1-2 with under half an hour to go, as Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak led teammate Mari Boya on a 1:46.379, 0.3s quicker than the Spaniard in P2.
Tramnitz moved MP up to P2, 0.037s down on the best effort until Ugo Ugochukwu put PREMA Racing top of the pile on a 1:46.277.
Martinius Stenshorne and Wurz set personal bests to go second and third respectively, and within a tenth of the McLaren Development Driver in P1.
After drivers returned to the circuit for a second run in the final 10 minutes, further improvements began to flow in.
Rafael Camara set a time to go quickest but lost it to exceeding track limits. Moments later, title rival Nikola Tsolov broke into the 1:45s to take the top spot, while Stenshorne and Ugochukwu posted improvements of their own that put them second and third.
Tramnitz closed the gap down to 0.291s as he went to P2 in the final five minutes. Camara posted a time good enough for P4 as the chequered flag waved to bring an end to Free Practice, but teammate Wurz went up the order once again to P2, 0.289s off Tsolov’s session-topping time.
Qualifying-
Nikola Tsolov fired in a late lap to take his second Aramco Pole Position Award in a row.
The Campos Racing driver had been bettered by title contender Rafael Camara going into the final attempts, but one last improvement put the Bulgarian back to P1. He finished ahead of Ugo Ugochukwu, who wound up second for PREMA Racing, with Camara having to settle for third.
With the tyre preparation laps complete, TRIDENT set the early pace with Camara going to the top on a 1:46.318, 0.2s ahead of teammate Noah Stromsted in second. Ugochukwu split them on his attempt, going to within 0.023s of the Brazilian’s effort.
Tim Tramnitz delivered his first time to go top of the pile, but only briefly, as Tsolov followed to smash the time to beat with a 1:45.655, some 0.3s quicker than the MP driver in second.
Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak made it a Campos 1-3, slotting into third with his initial attempt.
Everyone returned to the pitlane for a fresh set of Hard tyres and returned to the track with just over 15 minutes of the session remaining.
Tramnitz cut the gap down to 0.2s to Tsolov, while teammate Bruno del Pino slotted into third for the Dutch team.
Behind them though, Camara delivered a 1:45.176 to surge to the top of the times, 0.479s quicker than Tsolov’s initial benchmark time.
Stromsted put in an improvement also to go third overall with just over 10 minutes to go, while Charlie Wurz followed a few minutes later to go fourth.
With five minutes left, the circuit got busy once again. Theophile Nael moved Van Amersfoort Racing up to second to cut the deficit to provisional pole sitter Camara down to 0.3s.
Tramnitz followed that up to go second for MP, 0.296s behind the TRIDENT, but Tsolov returned to P1 with a 1:45.043 with less than half a minute to go.
Ugochukwu then went to P2 with his final attempt and just 0.023s off the top spot. Camara had a poor middle sector on his last lap and could only manage third in the end.
The full top 10 are- Pole: Tsolov, P2: Ugochukwu, P3: Camara, P4: Boya, P5: Tramnitz, P6: Wurz, P7: Stenshorne, P8: Van Hoepen, P9: Nael and P10: Leon.
Jordan's Track Talk 
Leave a comment