Brad Benavides took both his and AIX Racing’s maiden Formula 3 pole position in Belgium, finishing ahead of championship leader Rafael Câmara and Callum Voisin after a chaotic session that started five hours later than planned. Feeder Series spoke to the top three to find out how the earlier delays affected their approach to the session.

By Tori Turner

Both free practice and qualifying were delayed because of poor visibility from fog earlier in the morning. The practice session, originally scheduled for 9:00 local, was reduced from 40 to 30 minutes when it commenced at 14:00 local.

“We had a similar thing last year in Silverstone with the sprint race being delayed, so it’s not my first time having a delay like this,” Voisin said. “The only thing I wish I had was a few extra hours in bed. That would’ve been nice!” 

The drivers finally took to the track for qualifying at 19:10 local time, more than five hours after the originally scheduled start time.

Trident’s Câmara set the benchmark at the end of the first flying laps, leading the pack with a 2:05.557 just nine minutes into the session. Campos Racing’s Mari Boya and Prema Racing’s Ugo Ugochukwu fell just behind the Brazilian before Boya’s time was deleted for track limits violations.

“When they said it was cancelled, I thought we were only going to do quali,” Câmara told Feeder Series about the uncertainty. “After, it was the same approach. Like always, you try to maximise the car for quali.

“During the session, the first set was quite decent already, so I just tried to make sure that I was putting in a good lap again. I knew that the improvement is quite big in Spa, so I tried to make a decent lap and have a decent position to start for the races.”

The track veritably improved, and Câmara had gone more than a second faster on his next flying lap with a 2:04.359. But he had already been eclipsed by Benavides, whose 2:04.253 set with 3:35 on the clock vaulted him from 24th to first and remained unbeaten for the rest of the session.

The 24-year-old’s result today follows his best-ever F3 qualifying in Austria, where he put himself on the front row for the first time with second place.

“I actually suffered with a loom issue [in Austria]. That made me, whenever I go over a curb, the engine made me lose a couple positions, quite a few actually,” Benavides explained. “I never really expected to come in here and do that, but in all fairness it is only one up on Austria. Like I said last time, I never really approach races with expectations, but this is definitely a good shocker, so expect the unexpected.” 

The order changed dramatically as drivers rushed to set times on the penultimate runs of the session. Those laps ultimately proved crucial as heavy traffic throttled most drivers’ final efforts.

As the pack bunched up, drivers found themselves going three- or even four-wide into the corners and had little time to start their final laps.

Everyone ultimately crossed the line in time, but the chaos added further stress for all drivers. Câmara was particularly compromised, having just been informed by his team that his previous lap had been deleted and he had dropped to 23rd. But his time was reinstated as he made his way along the Kemmel Straight on his final flying lap. 

Still, neither Câmara nor anyone else from that group improved on their previous flying laps as they struggled for track position on degrading tyres, ensuring Benavides secured his maiden pole position three years after his F3 debut – and five hours later than originally planned.

 “I got a mega nap in! I just napped like three times today,” polesitter Benavides joked about how his day went. “On a technical aspect, I wouldn’t really know what changed much. To me, it was just, like, offset the time and that’s pretty much it.”

Rodin’s Callum Voisin took third at the circuit where he scored his maiden pole position last year, while teammate Roman Bilinski came fourth to secure his first top-five qualifying result since Monaco. McLaren juniors Martinius Stenshorne and Ugochukwu put themselves in the top three early in the session and ultimately qualified fifth and sixth.

Championship contender Nikola Tsolov qualified seventh, five positions back from Câmara. Silverstone sprint winner Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak jumped into the top 10 with 3:35 to go to finish eighth, qualifying ahead of Charlie Wurz in ninth. Bruno Del Pino rounded out the top 10 of the session, with Noah Strømsted finishing 11th.

Freddie Slater, who returns to F3 after making his debut in Bahrain, will start the sprint race from first on the grid after securing 12th in qualifying. The Briton currently leads the FRegional Europe standings by 20 points, and on his last outing at Spa in GB3 at the start of June, he took a spectacular last-to-first victory in wet conditions.

While most drivers pitted for fresh rubber midway through the session, the Van Amersfoort Racing trio stayed out. Théophile Naël shot to the top of the timing screens with a 2:05.508, 0.049s faster than Câmara’s best, as Santiago Ramos was just 0.172 behind Naël in third. Naël did not improve thereafter, however, and ended up 23rd, while Ramos wound up 25th after he exceeded track limits on his final lap, which would have put him 10th.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency