León hails PREMA’s performance after ‘positive’ Monte Carlo Qualifying

Noel León believes he and PREMA Racing “maximised” their opportunities during Friday’s Monte Carlo Qualifying session after the Mexican driver qualified fifth fastest for the Feature Race.

Going out in Group A, the 20-year-old was in good form throughout, consistently fighting at or near the top of the timesheets.

However, on his final lap, León completed a 1:25.386 to put him third in the group, finishing 0.504s off eventual pole-sitter, Campos Racing’s Nikola Tsolov.

QUALIFYING: Tsolov dominates in Monte Carlo to take maiden F3 Pole Position

“Not a bad day to be honest,” reflected León. We qualified P3 on lap time, and P5 after both groups. It was a positive quali, and we have been making good steps since Imola, but step-by-step.

“I’m so happy with the work the team has done and at the end, the gap to Campos - they were a bit faster than us, but we maximised our opportunities.

“It was a green session, so it was pretty fun to do a normal one and pushing bit by bit every time to the limit and at the end I touched a couple of walls, but it was all good at the end, that’s Monaco. Now it's about focusing to score points.”

This is León’s best qualifying performance of the campaign, and since wound up fourth in Budapest in 2024, and he puts that down to the improvements PREMA have made since in-season testing in Bahrain.

“It's a good step forward,” said León. “You qualify third and fifth with the fourth best lap time, but it’s still a positive, but there are still a lot of things to improve.

READ MORE: Nael revels in ‘dream’ Monte Carlo debut after a positive showing in Free Practice

“In Imola we were quite fast in quali, but we missed something in the race. There are positives to take as I said, but for now let’s focus on the race, maximise our opportunities and score the most points we can.”

Looking ahead to the weekend, León is set to start from P7 when the grid reverses for the Sprint Race. The plan for him is to continue to score points, but also to learn as much as he can for Sunday’s longer event.

“Of course that's the ideal goal, to be on the podium on Sunday,” said León. “It's a bit difficult to overtake here but anything can happen. We will try our best, tomorrow is a good opportunity to learn about the tyre well, and then we will see for Sunday.”