QUALIFYING: Benavides and AIX Racing earn first F3 pole in dramatic Spa session

AIX Racing’s Brad Benavides earned his and the team’s maiden FIA Formula 3 Aramco Pole Position Award late on in a thrilling Qualifying session.

The American found time on his final attempt to record a 2:04.253 and beat Championship leader and TRIDENT driver Rafael Câmara to the top spot, with Rodin Motorsport’s Callum Voisin in third.

With the first runs in the books, Câmara hit the front with a 2:05.557 to set the pace ahead of Ugo Ugochukwu by 0.234s.

Practice pace-setter Mari Boya had been in the top five but lost his opening effort to exceeding track limits after running over the white line at Pouhon.

Drivers remained on circuit for another attempt on their first set of tyres and there were improvements in the top 10. Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak closed the gap to Câmara in second, with Alessandro Giusti third on his next attempt for MP Motorsport.

Everyone returned to the pit lane with half the session remaining for a fresh set of the Pirelli Medium tyres.

One of the drivers to go early on the second run was Théophile Nael, who went fastest on a 2:05.508. Van Amersfoort Racing teammate Santiago Ramos improved to third, 0.172s down on the Frenchman’s laptime.

With the rest of the grid back out for their next set of laps, Boya led the train and put in a personal best, but track evolution was huge, leading to a massive improvement in times.

Benavides delivered a 2:04.253 for the provisional top spot with three minutes to go. Câmara also made an improvement but could not better the time of the American driver, settling 0.106s behind in second.

A squabble for track position ended when Ugochukwu moved to the head of the queue for the final attempts with less than 30 seconds to go and with almost the entire grid looking to start their final lap as late as possible.

However, nobody could find an improvement, leaving Benavides with pole for the Feature Race on Sunday, his and AIX’s first in the Championship.

Câmara had briefly lost his lap for exceeding track limits, but it was reinstated to leave him in second at the chequered flag ahead of Voisin in third.

Rodin teammate Roman Bilinski was fourth ahead of Martinius Stenshorne in fifth. Ugochukwu wound up sixth ahead of Tsolov and Inthraphuvasak in seventh and eighth for Campos Racing.

Charlie Wurz and Bruno del Pino completed the top 10, followed by Noah Stromsted in 11th and Freddie Slater in 12th, with the Hitech TGR driver set to start the Sprint Race from reverse grid pole.

The FIA Formula 3 Sprint Race is set to get underway at 09:15 local time on Saturday morning.