Rodin Motorsport absolutely owned Thursday afternoon in Baku, pulling off a stunning 1-2 sweep across both qualifying sessions. It was a proper masterclass in the streets, with Alexander Dunne and Martinius Stenshorne sharing the spoils and leaving the rest of the field scrambling to catch up.
Qualifying 1 saw Oliver Goethe set the early benchmark with a 1:59.374 before the times dropped sharply. Dunne seized control with a 1:55.383 to claim his first Aramco Pole Position Award of the season, while Kush Maini slotted into second, ending 0.230s back. Stenshorne quickly backed up his teammate to make it a Rodin 1-2, finishing just 0.033s off the pace. Noel León hauled his Campos machine up to third, over a tenth behind the leader.
As the session wound down with six minutes remaining, track position battles caused chaos. Dunne locked up heavily into Turn 1, dragging Gabriele Minì and Roman Bilinski off the track with him. Further back, championship leader Nikola Tsolov struggled to piece a lap together, pitting from P9 and leaving himself vulnerable. Title rival Minì fared even worse, stuck down in P14 after failing to improve on his final attempt.
When the flag fell on Q1, Dunne held firm ahead of Stenshorne, León, Maini, and Câmara. Mari Boya took sixth for PREMA Racing, closely followed by teammate Sebastián Montoya. Dino Beganovic grabbed eighth, Laurens van Hoepen ninth, and Tsolov rounded out the top 10—a result that handed the championship leader reverse-grid pole for the sprint race.
After a brief pause, the machines rolled back out for Qualifying 2. León initially set the pace at 1:54.477, only to be promptly beaten by Câmara by 0.250s. After a flurry of activity and a switch to fresh sets of Supersofts, the timing screens went wild in the dying moments. Dunne vaulted to provisional pole with a 1:54.173, but Stenshorne was simply flying on a 1:53.728, beating his teammate by 0.445s to secure his first Aramco Pole Position Award and cap off another Rodin 1-2.
Câmara finished third in the second session, ahead of Boya and Maini. León took sixth, followed by Van Hoepen, Tsolov, Tasanapol Inthraphuvsak in ninth, and Montoya sealing the top 10.
