QUALIFYING: Câmara heads up TRIDENT front row lock-out ahead of Stomsted

It was a perfect Friday in Melbourne for Rafael Câmara 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. Théophile Nael wound up third, but ended the session under investigation for an unsafe release.

Installation laps complete and it was Roman Bilinski that set the benchmark time initially with a 1:36.125 for Rodin Motorsport.

Two purple sectors by Câmara 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.

That was until Nael launched Van Amersfoort Racing to provisional Pole at the halfway point with a 1:35.566.

After waiting for clear track, MP Motorsport’s Tim Tramnitz moved into contention to go third fastest, before Câmara strung together a traffic-free lap to storm to P1, half a second clear of anybody else and into the 1:34s. Stromsted then closed that gap down to 0.129s as he improved to P2.

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 were 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.

With Badoer cleared, the session resumed with enough time for some final laps, but another Red Flag followed quickly, as Christian Ho stopped on track in his DAMS Lucas Oil car, while Nael left the pitlane with his airbox still attached to the car. It attracted a post-session investigation from the Stewards.

With such little time on the clock, the session was not resumed. Bedrin wound up fourth with Tramnitz in fifth, and Charlie Wurz in sixth to cap off TRIDENT’s impressive day. Inthraphuvasak ended up in P7, ahead of Ugochukwu, Stenshorne, Bilinski, and Matías Zagazeta, with Santiago Ramos 12th and set to line up on reverse grid pole tomorrow.

The first Sprint Race of the 2025 season is set to get underway at 11:15 local time on Saturday.