MONZA QUALIFYING ANALYSIS: How Group B learned from Group A to take pole?

10 September 2025

For the second consecutive year Qualifying in Monza came with a twist, as the field split through the middle between Group A and Group B, and it made for an entertaining affair.

Ugo Ugochukwu led the way in the opening group with a 1:38.613, but that was not good enough to take pole, as Brad Benavides’ 1:38.120 in the second set of 15 put him on top.

There was near on half a second between the two drivers on the front row in lap time, but was all of that track improvement? As we looked back on Qualifying, it is clear to see that it was not.

GROUP A’s STRATEGY

There were 10 minutes for each group to set their best times, but Group A did not use their full allocation. When the light turned green, only James Hedley, Nikita Johnson and Roman Bilinski went out.

This happened for a couple of reasons, one being that the drivers wanted to wait until the track was at its best before setting their laps on their fresh Soft tyres.

The other is that they did not want to go out on track alone without a tow, as a slipstream was reportedly worth from half a second to eight-tenths per lap, so they waited, and saved their tyres.

Ugochukwu was fastest in Group B but had his time beaten by over four-tenths

As for the three that went out early, Hedley and Johnson had never been to Monza before, while the former was also driving for a new team this weekend in Van Amersfoort Racing.

As for Bilinski, he spun out in Free Practice without setting a lap, so they all wanted to go out to get familiar with the circuit.

But none of them completed a flying lap and they instead joined up with the pack as they came out with over five minutes to go.

This meant that the majority of the field would only get one timed lap, while Callum Voisin, Tim Tramnitz and Alessandro Giusti pushed on for a second.

We then saw the first negative of this strategy as after Rafael Câmara went to P1, he had his lap deleted for exceeding track limits. With the Brazilian having taken the chequered flag, it left him without a time and at the bottom of the leaderboard.

Ugochukwu was then left fastest and while Voisin, Tramnitz and Giusti all pushed on, the latter two were not able to climb up the timesheets, so they stayed in fourth and fifth, while the former – having had his previous time deleted – went to P10, running without a tow.

Voisin felt he drove well but without a tow could not do better than 10th

Speaking after the Sprint Race, Voisin – having turned P20 into sixth – said: “It’s just frustrating, I think we had really good pace, it's just Monza shenanigans, you have to get a tow, and with our strategy, we tried to bank in two laps, but the tow was a bit too strong to be out by ourselves, so I was a bit compromised. But the lap itself was quite good.”

GROUP B’s LEARNINGS

Clearly the drivers in Group B had been watching on and had learned, as all 15 cars came on track as the lights turned green.

Speaking after Qualifying, Matías Zagazeta, who finished fourth fastest in Group B, said: “I was hoping nobody was going to do the same as Group A. I think everyone learned and everyone went quite early. It was pretty good, it was just one section everyone was going quite slow.

“But then it was pretty straightforward, it was quite a clean session, we got more laps than the other group which was pretty good.”

Most of the drivers in Group B did three laps. This meant there was no pressure to just do one timed attempt and, as the Soft tyres were holding on, they could improve after each lap.

Benavides took pole after going fastest in Group B

So the drivers were able to ramp up, and by the second set of laps, Ugochukwu had already lost pole. In fact, the PREMA Racing driver’s time would have only been ninth fastest in Group A.

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Looking back, would the teams and drivers in Group A have opted to go out earlier and to get more laps completed? The problem is they all would have needed to do it, as Voisin’s result showed the importance of getting a tow, so going out early by yourself would not have been wise.

But Group B certainly showed what was possible if you completed more than one push lap, and maybe if the drivers in the first group had their time back, they would have done things differently.