After setting the fastest time in Free Practice, Chiara Bättig became the first F1 Academy Wildcard to lead a session. Her success continued in F1 Academy Qualifying where she was able to claim pole position.

The Earliest Times

Alpine’s Nina Gademan was the first driver onto the track and showed early potential, setting a time of 2:03.348. She was beaten to the top spot by home-hero Alisha Palmowski and many times started coming in.

Gademan returned to the top of the times as several drivers went wide and off-track.

Several drivers suffered with lap-time deletion and were dropped down the order.

The Final Rush

Lisa Billard delivered an incredible lap of 2:02.18 which sent her to the top of the qualifying times.

However, just a few minutes later Bättig became the first driver to set a time in the 2:01s which propelled her to the top of the timings and provisional pole.

Whilst many drivers started on push laps, nobody was able to come close to Bättig’s time.

A brief yellow flag was shown for Esmee Kosterman who spun in Sector 1 at the end of the F1 Academy Qualifying session.

F1 Academy will be back on track at 19:05 (18:05 local time) on Saturday 4th July for Race One and at 11:00 (10:00 local time) on Sunday 5th July for the Feature Race.