Red Bull Ford’s Chloe Chambers took F1 Academy pole position for Race 2 in Miami after setting the pace in a rain-affected qualifying session.
Chambers set a 2:00.458s effort early on before rain fell and prevented anyone from improving upon their initial laps, placing Red Bull’s Alisha Palmowski in second and Mercedes’ Doriane Pin in third.
Championship leader Maya Weug was the biggest loser as a result, qualifying in 10th.
Coming into qualifying, it was the Championship protagonists who shared the spoils in practice: Pin fastest in FP1, Weug fastest in FP2.
Palmowski was second quickest in the opening session, and home hero Chambers took the runner-up spot in FP2.
Pin was told to push straight away as the 30-minute session commenced, with rain feared.
Chambers and her Red Bull compatriot Palmowski were the first to set times as spots of rain began to fall, the former pipping the latter to provisional pole by 0.018s.
Pin posted an effort 0.071s behind in third as conditions worsened.
Several drivers were seen running deep into the Turn 11 run-off, while others returned to the pits as the rain made it impossible to improve on the initial times.
This was a big worry for Championship leader Weug, who was down in 10th.
Nine minutes in, and the whole field was back in pit lane, dropping slick tyres for wets in order to gather learnings with the potential that one or both races could be impacted by rain as well.
The rest of the session played host to wet-weather reconnaissance laps of the Miami International Autodrome and the order remained unchanged.
That meant McLaren’s Ella Lloyd took fourth, just 0.076s from pole position.
Williams’ Lia Block had her best qualifying effort of the season so far in fifth, ahead of Puma driver Aurelia Nobels and Racing Bulls’ Rafaela Ferreira.
F1 Academy’s Race 1 reverse grid means eighth-placed Emma Felbermayr will start Saturday evening’s race from pole.
That left Aston Martin’s Tina Hausmann and a frustrated Weug to round out the top-10.
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