Chloe Chambers secures third consecutive pole in F1 Academy, beats Palmowski and Pin in Montreal
- RACERS
- Jun 14
- 4 min read
Chloe Chambers secured her third consecutive pole position in F1 Academy at the end of a closely fought session with Campos teammate Alisha Palmowski and Doriane Pin, while championship leader Maya Weug battled again technical issues. Chloe Chong claimed reverse grid pole position for Race 2.
Chloe Chambers secured her third consecutive pole position in F1 Academy at the end of a closely fought session with Campos teammate Alisha Palmowski and Doriane Pin, while championship leader Maya Weug would have to start from P15 after technical issues. Chloe Chong, already protagonist of a strong practice session, claimed reverse grid pole position for Race 2 at second-home race, on the series’ first visit to Montreal.
F1 Academy qualifying followed the sole practice session on a sunny Friday afternoon at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, as the all female championship visits the Canadian venue for the first time.
On a tricky circuit that leaves little room for mistakes, the drivers had to learn the secrets of the track without prior testing, and it would be Campos Racing to come up on top, with Red Bull-backed drivers Alisha Palmowski and Chloe Chambers – who will carry over her pole position from the postponed Miami race – topped the timesheets, at a close distance.
Alongside positive performances for Alba Larsen and Chloe Chong, respectively third and fourth, one of the big stories of the session was also championship leader Maya Weug, who battled an electrical issues and could not set a representative lap time ahead of a crucial qualifying, with the battle for the title now entering the mid-part of the season. Doriane Pin, eighth fastest in practice, has in fact closed in on the title fight – now only one point separating the top contenders, with Chloe Chambers keeping herself in contention with extremely solid results at every round so far.
After many parts changed on the Ferrari-liveried MP Motorsport machine, Weug would have to settle in quickly and make up for the lost track time.
As the green flags waved, the Prema cars pitted after one lap to bolt on a new set of tyres, trying a different tyre strategy.
Chambers led the opening minutes, with a 1:45.283, ahead of Campos teammates Rafaela Ferreira and Alisha Palmowski. Times however tumbled quickly and Lia Block set the new best lap, followed by Nobels and Felbermayr – before Chambers could again snatch the lead.
Tommy Hilfiger-supported Alba Larsen was the first driver to go under the 1:41 mark, however a lockup into turn 13 hampered her following lap.
Alisha Palmowski made a good improvement to clock a 1:40.101, ahead of Ella Lloyd and Lia Block, as most drivers improved quickly with track development.
The track was in fact still dusty, and home racer Nicole Havrda spun, but avoided contact with barriers and rejoined.
A strong run for Mathilda Paatz put the Wild Card for the fourth round into the top ten in eighth.
Despite Palmowski improving again, Alba Larsen set a 1:39.645, almost half a second clear of anyone with a particularly strong first sector.
Maya Weug made good use of the first ten minutes of the session, bringing herself up into sixth in effectively her first flying laps of the week. Her closest rival, Pin, had at this point not set a lap with Prema’s strategy focused on a single set of tyres on an already faster track.
Lloyd and Block made gains, but none of them was close enough to worry Alba Larsen at the top of the leaderboard.
It was time for the Prema drivers to maximise their strategy; Gadenan had a very solid lap but went deep and cut the final chicane, while Doriane Pin climbed the order to fourth – with Gademan’s second run coming close in fifth. Chambers and Palmowski were the first drivers able to beat Larsen’s time – Chambers finding a great rhythm to set a 1:38.06, then topped by her teammate in 1:38.748, the two Campos cars separated by less than a tenth of a second. Chambers found a few more hundredths of a second to snatch the lead once again – however they now also had the company of Doriane Pin fighting for pole position in third. Pin set the fastest second sector and moved up to second one lap later – but Chambers had another superb run to extend the gap to Pin to over 4 tenths with a 1:38.125.
At the same time, Maya Weug pitted, again slowed down by car issues.
A flat-spotted tyre for Pin hampered her final attempts, while Chambers tried to use the slipstream from Block to further improve.
In the final minutes Ferreira went deep into turn 1 but rejoined, holding seventh place with a positive run. Crone also locked up and went off into the runoff, also rejoining with no damages.
Chloe Chong’s 1:39.128 put the British-Canadian in a crucial eighth that would gain the Rodin Motorsport’s driver into reverse grid pole.
At the end of a closely fought qualifying, Choe Chambers took her fourth F1 Academy pole position – and third this season in four rounds, aiming to capitalize her outstanding qualifying skills. Chambers will therefore start from the best position on the grid in both Race 1 – the Miami makeup race – and Race 2 on Sunday.
Campos’ Palmowski was second, ahead of Doriane Pin in third.
Ella Lloyd was a highly promising fourth, with Tina Hausmann completing a stellar qualifying in the top five.
Emma Felbermayr and Nina Gademan followed – as Chloe Chong’s eighth place secured her reverse grid pole in Race 2. Lia Block just missed out on eighth, while Rafaela Ferreira completed the top ten. Joanne Ciconte made a big improvement in her final run to grab P11, ahead of Alba Larsen that couldn’t improve further after a strong start of the session.
Aurelia Nobels was P13, while Wild Card entry Mathilda Paatz, supported by new series sponsor Gatorade, ended in a respectable P14 as the top Hitech car – just ahead of championship leader Maya Weug, still battling issues. Courtney Crone was P16 and will start ahead of Aiva Anagnostiadis and Nicole Havrda.
Tomorrow’s first race scheduled for 09:15 local time, will see the postponed second race from Miami getting underway with Chloe Chambers and Palmowsi – again sharing the front row – followed by the same second row in Pin and Lloyd.
