F1 ACADEMY: Pin seals double pole in Qatar ahead of Weug and Pulling

Doriane Pin secured her fourth and fifth pole positions of the season, as the PREMA Racing driver continued her strong run of form around the Lusail International Circuit in Qatar.
Mercedes-backed Pin topped both Practice sessions on Friday, and kept that momentum into Qualifying securing top spot for both races across the penultimate 2024 F1 ACADEMY weekend. Alongside Pin on the front row for Race 1 and 2 is her PREMA Racing teammate Maya Weug, with Alpine’s Abbi Pulling having to settle for two third-place grid slots as she chases down the Drivers’ title.
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Pin set the first representative time of the session, locking in a 1:55.998, however, it didn’t take long for Weug to beat that with a 1:55.779, as the pair went back and forth with top spot on the timings.
Pin found herself quickest once again as the clock counted down, while Standings’ leader Pulling tried her best to add to her tally of seven pole positions this season. Despite finding herself in some traffic across her laps, she was able to cross the finish line in third, six tenths off the Mercedes.
In the end it was the Mercedes driver who finished on top as she set a rapid final lap of 1:55.267, going purple in the first sector and improving on her own best time by 0.042s.
Across the rest of the field, it was another solid result for Block in her Williams as she will start alongside Pulling on the second row later today. Fresh from her back-to-back fourth place finishes in Singapore, the American will undoubtedly be hunting down her first F1 ACADEMY podium.
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Another star of Qualifying was Wild Card Alisha Palmowski, who will be lining up in fourth for tomorrow’s race. The 18-year-old Brit said she was targeting a podium after finishing third in the second and final Practice session around Lusail yesterday.
Hamda Al Qubaisi for Red Bull Racing will start fifth for Race 1, with Palmowski sixth and Nerea Martí seventh in her Tommy Hilfiger machine. Bianca Bustamante will line up in eighth for McLaren, with Puma’s Aurelia Nobels and the American Express driver Jessica Edgar rounding out the top 10 for this evening’s race.
For Race 2, Hamda Al Qubaisi secured herself another top five result, with Martí in sixth, Bustamante in seventh, Block eighth and Carrie Schreiner for Kick Sauber making her way onto the fifth row of the grid. The German will find herself starting next to the ART Grand Prix car of Nobels, who qualified 10th.
For an in-depth report visit the F1 ACADEMY website here.