Photo: Ida Wood
Luke Cooper, Nolan Allaer and Jamie Sharp took the pole positions for the Formula Ford Festival heats at a wet Brands Hatch.
The circuit was being bombared by rain at the start of qualifying for heat one, and although the rainfall reduced the track remained soaked.
Team Dolan’s Niall Murray was fastest at first, setting a 1m01.010s, then team-mate Chris Middlehurst set a 1m00.212s. Middlehurst was also the first driver to lap sub-60s, which is rarely seen in the wet at Brands Hatch but has been made possible since the track was last resurfaced, and his young team-mate Jason Smyth also broke into 59s territory.
Middlehurst improved to 59.143s, with Murray and TM Racing’s Felix Fisher getting into second and third place.
Team USA scholar Jack Sullivan got within 0.247 seconds of Middlehurst’s pace, and Cooper was just 0.015s slower than that before red flags waved with six-and-a-half minutes left on the clock as Jonathan Nash went off at Druids.
When the session restarted, Smyth went second fastest with a lap 0.194s off the pace. He was shuffle down to fourth with one-and-a-half minutes to go as Cooper and Murray narrowly bettered his laptime.
It looked like Middlehurst would go unbeaten, and he improved to a 59.1s laptime with 65s left of qualifying. He then found an improvement of another thousandth of a second on his penultimate lap, but with seconds to go lost pole position as Cooper set a 58.827s.
Each had time for one more lap but stayed in their positions, while Graham Brunton Racing’s Team Canada scholar Logan Pacza went third fatest. Sullivan qualified fourth, and Murray and Smyth were split by 0.001s in fifth and sixth. Castle Combe FF1600 champion Felix Fisher was seventh fastest, and Samuel Harrison drove Joey Foster’s Firman to eighth place on the timesheet.
More rain fell ahead of qualifying for heat two, meaning the drivers in that session could not match the earlier pace.
B-M Racing’s Rory Smith was fastest at first with a 1m02.959s, then Motorsport Car Preparations’ Jordan Dempsey moved ahead with a 1m01.470s. Ammonite Motorsport’s Allaer was next to the top, setting a 1m00.722s, then Dempsey moved back ahead by 0.101s.
Dolan’s Jordan Kelly and Allaer brought the pace down into the 1m00.4s with nine minutes to go, and Kelly went off at Paddock Hill Bend after going fastest. He was able to get his car restarted, and dropped to fourth place as Allaer set a 1m00.254s to lead Dempsey by 0.067s and Smith by 0.085s.
Allaer and Dempsey broke the one-minute barrier with seven minutes to go, and it took until the final 30s for somebody else to as Kelly et a 59.816s to split the pair. Despite not improving in the session’s second half, Allaer took pole by 0.457s over Kelly, with Dempsey a further 0.014s behind.
It was a battle between B-M Racing drivers for heat three pole, with Jonny McMullan fastest at first. His team-mate Sharp moved ahead with 10 minutes to go and stayed there to the end.
Oldfield Motorsport’s Brandon McCaughan and privateer Tom Nippers traded second place with McMullan but in the end PWR1 Racing’s Jeremy Fairbairn took the position from McMullan by 0.031s.
The session was red flagged after Murray Shepherd crashed out at Paddock Hill Bend, and the cheequered flag was waved 40s early after Guy Sheppard also went off into the gravel.
Qualifying round-up
Heat 1 grid
1 Luke Cooper Swift Cooper 58.827s
2 Chris Middlehurst Team Dolan +0.272s
3 Logan Pacza Graham Brunton Racing +0.409s
4 Jack Sullivan Ammonite Motorsport +0.477s
5 Niall Murray Team Dolan +0.509s
6 Jason Smyth Team Dolan +0.510s
7 Felix Fisher TM Racing +0.523s
8 Samuel Harrison Joey Foster Racing +0.674s
9 Donal Downey +1.602s
10 Dave McArthur B-M Racing +1.696s
Heat 2 grid
1 Nolan Allaer Ammonite Motorsport 59.359s
2 Jordan Kelly Team Dolan +0.457s
3 Jordan Dempsey Motorsport Car Preparations +0.471s
4 Ayrton Houk Ammonite Motorsport +0.693s
5 Rory Smith B-M Racing +0.754s
6 Hugh Esterson Ammonite Motorsport +0.808s
7 Tom Hawkins TM Racing +1.438s
8 Charlie Mann Mann Motorspot +1.515s
9 Isaac Canto da Silva Team Dolan +1.771s
10 Andy Charsley Kejan Engineering +2.133s
Heat 3 grid
1 Jamie Sharp B-M Racing 59.920s
2 Jeremy Fairbairn PWR1 Racing +0.415s
3 Jonny McMullan B-M Racing +0.446s
4 Tom Nippers +0.618s
5 Morgan Quinn Team Dolan +0.809s
6 Brandon McCaughan Oldfield Motorsport +0.827s
7 Alex Berg Graham Brunton Racing +1.088s
8 Porter Aiken Oldfield Motorsport +1.223s
9 Vincent Jay TM Racing +2.529s
10 Murray Shepherd Shepherd Racing +4.547s