Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Rodin Motorsport’s James Piszcyk claimed two poles in qualifying for the final round of the British Formula 4 season.
Piszcyk jumped to the top of the order with his final lap of the session, setting a 1m24.842s. He was the only driver to complete Brands Hatch’s Grand Prix layout in under 1m25s.
Two red flag periods disrupted running in qualifying. The first came 10 minutes in when two cars ran wide in separate incidents. JHR Developments’ Rowan Campbell-Pilling had just gone fourth fastest when he ran wide. As the yellow flags were brought out, Hitech GP’s Xavier Avramides also ran off and into the barriers.
Rodin’s Dries Van Langendonck was on provisional pole at this point, but there was plenty of pace still to be found. Piszcyk was second quickest, and Hitech’s championship leader Fionn McLaughlin was fifth.
After a lengthy stoppage, the track went green again, only for qualifying to almost immediately be red flagged as Argenti Motorsport’s Henry Mercier came to a stop with a damaged front wing.
The remainder of the session was reduced to 10 minutes. Laptimes immediately tumbled, with Virtuosi Racing’s Martin Molnar the first to better Van Langendonck’s benchmark.
Piszcyk then jumped to the top of the order, only to be usurped by team-mate Adam Al Azhari on his penultimate lap of the session. With his final effort, Piszcyk reclaimed first place by 0.163 seconds.
Argenti’s Ethan Jeff-Hall spent the majority of qualifying at the sharp end of the order and with his last lap improved to match Al Azhari to the thousandth of a second. Since he set his 1m25.005s after Al Azhari, he qualified third ahed of McLaughlin and Xcel Motorsport’s Theo Palmer.
Molnar was demoted to sixth, ahead of Van Langendonck and Argenti’s August Raber. That order set the provisional grid for race three, while drivers’ second-best laptimes were used for race one.
That earned Piszcyk another pole by 0.139s over Jeff-Hall, with McLaughlin and Al Azhari with 0.215s of him too.
Van Langendonck and Raber were fifth and sixth fastest, but have been forced to start from the pitlane for race one so Molnar and Xcel’s Chase Fernandez will instead fill row three of the grid.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 James Piszcyk Rodin Motorsport 1m25.067s
2 Ethan Jeff-Hall Argenti Motorsport +0.139s
3 Fionn McLaughlin Hitech GP +0.205s
4 Adam Al Azhari Rodin Motorsport +0.214s
5 Martin Molnar Virtuosi Racing +0.369s
6 Chase Fernandez Xcel Motorsport +0.387s
7 Theo Palmer Xcel Motorsport +0.445s
8 Cole Hewetson Xcel Motorsport +0.936s
9 Thomas Bearman Hitech GP +0.987s
10 Tommy Harfield Chris Dittmann Racing +1.434s
Race 3 grid
1 Piszcyk 1m24.842s
2 Al Azhari +0.163s
3 Jeff-Hall +0.163s
4 McLaughlin +0.222s
5 Palmer +0.274s
6 Molnar +0.358s
7 Dries Van Langendonck Rodin Motorsport +0.369s
8 August Raber Argenti Motorsport +0.408s
9 Fernandez +0.604s
10 Bearman +0.666s