Amna claims pole in F4UAE Trophy Round

UAE’s first female racing driver, Amna Al Qubaisi, gave the local fans at Yas Marina Circuit plenty to cheer by claiming pole in qualifying for the F4UAE Trophy Round in Abu Dhabi.

The 19-year-old was competitive right from the start at Yas Marina Circuit, leading a curtailed morning practice session and then emerging victorious in a tight duel to decide the grid for Saturday’s Race 1.

Amna and her sister Hamda Al Qubaisi were the first cars on track for Abu Dhabi Racing in the practice session, and would lead by example on home turf sitting P1 and P2 almost throughout the session.

The more experienced of the pair, Amna had a strong lead of 1.1s over her younger sibling, posting a 2:14.104s.

Only Alex Connor in the No.27 Xcel Motorsport would briefly break the family gathering, taking second, but Hamda responded with her last flying lap to once again finish behind her sister.

30 minutes were planned for practice, but only 13 would be used as a red flag caused by Logan Hannah brought an early end to the session.

The Scot broke the front-left suspension on her No.9 Dream Racing machine over the sausage kerb at the Turn 5 & 6 chicane before coming to a halt on the straight after the hairpin.

Just before that, Saudi driver Reema Juffali had broken the front wing on her car, also from a kerb strike.

Later in the day, the serious action of qualifying took place to decide the grid for Race 1 on Saturday.

This became a real tussle between Amna and Nicola Marinangeli as they traded fastest times throughout the 20-minute session.

Ultimately, it was the Emirati who just had the pace, posting a 2:12.727s to take pole from the Italian by just a tenth of a second.

Tijmen van der Helm tried to join the battle for P1 early on but would finish four-tenths down on the leading pair in third for Xcel Motorsport.

Alex Connor followed in fourth as Hamda couldn’t quite repeat her practice position in fifth, almost a second slower than her sister.

Jordanian Manan Hajjawi was a solid sixth for Dragon Racing on debut in UAE F4, while a returnee to the Middle East series, Nico Goehler, was seventh.

Rodrigo Almeida was eighth with Iranian Mehrbod Shameli ninth and Reema Jaffali completed the top 10 for Dragon Racing.

Ivan Peklin, Constantin Reisch and Logan Hannah would round out the 13 runners.