2025 Macau GP | FIA FR World Cup | Qualifying 2 | Naël takes Pole ahead of Slater after tight Qualifying battle - Motorsport

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Qualifying 2 of the 2025 Macau FIA FR World Cup saw Théophile Naël secure pole position in a heavily red flagged session. His final flying lap proved decisive, giving him clear track space and enough pace to beat out the rest of the field as the clock expired.

Earlier on Friday, Freddie Slater topped the timings in the FP2 session, which was heavily disrupted. Three separate incidents brought out three red flags, drastically reducing the available running time and leaving many drivers without a clean push lap.

Green flags to start the session

The opening five minutes of Qualifying 2 were spent with drivers carefully building heat into their tyres and ensuring the cars were fully up to temperature before pushing for fast laps.

Once times began to register, Freddie Slater initially set the benchmark with a 2:17.033, putting himself three and a half tenths clear of Théophile Naël in second, with Mari Boya slotting into third. The times were 2 seconds down from Thursday’s Qualifying 1 session.

Naël soon responded, finding time on his next run to go 0.027s quicker than Slater, before further improving with purple sectors as the session evolved. Meanwhile, Evan Giltaire also climbed the order, moving up into P3 and closing the gap to the front to 0.560s off provisional pole.

Red Flags for Garfias and Kucharczyk

With 28 minutes remaining, the session was brought to its first major halt when José Garfias lost control and struck the wall on the run into the mountain section, triggering a red flag.

Once the track went green again, the times quickly began to shuffle. Mari Boya was the first to improve, jumping back into third place. Moments later, Mattia Colnaghi surged to the top with a 2:16.783, while Evan Giltaire continued his strong pace, moving up to second and closing the gap to just 0.221 seconds off provisional pole.

The momentum was short-lived, however, as a second red flag was issued, this time for Tymek Kucharczyk, after the Van Amersfoort Racing driver made contact with the barriers.

Session resumed with another red flag shortly after

When the track went green once more, Deligny was the first to cross the line, immediately improving and reclaiming provisional pole with a 2:16.611. However, the progress was halted yet again when Charlie Wurz made contact with the barriers, triggering another red flag and further compressing the remaining time in the session.

With just under 12 minutes left after the restart, the final shootout began. Naël became the first driver of the session to break into the 2:15s, while Kato slotted into second place. The order continued to change rapidly as Deligny once again returned to the top, though only briefly. Naël responded with an even quicker lap, while Slater delivered a strong final push to secure second place, with Giltaire rounding out the top three.