Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Deagan Faiclough took his first two British Formula 4 pole positions in qualifying on Brands Hatch’s Indy layout.
The Hitech GP driver earned a double pole with a consistent performance in the 20-minute session, narrowly beating Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Ninovic to the fastest lap by just 0.06 seconds.
Faiclough’s very first lap put him on provisional pole, with Argenti Motorsport’s Rowan Campell-Pilling in second place. The order did not change much in the first half of the session, but laptimes would improve during the second runs.
The benchmark pace was lowered by Fairclough to 44.857s, as Ninovic demoted Campell-Pilling to third. An improvement from Ninovic with his third flying lap meant he also went second fastest on drivers’ second-best laptimes, which set the race one grid while the fastest laps are used for race three.
Campbell-Pilling was third quickest on both metrics, ahead of Hitech’s Mika Abrahams, who will also provisionally start from the same position in races one and three.
Rodin’s James Higgins, who took pole for the opening race of the season in the previous round, could only manage to go fifth quickest, 0.239s off Fairclough’s pace. He was narrowly ahead of Hitech’s Reza Seewooruthun.
Xcel Motorsport’s Zack Scoular was seventh fastest, with Yuanpu Cui (Argenti), Leo Robinson (JHR Developments) and Jack Sherwood (Rodin) rounding out the top 10. The 22-car field was spread by just 0.784s.
Having been the 12th fastest driver, Rodin’s F1 Academy star Abbi Pulling will start on pole for the partially reversed-grid race two.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Deagen Fairclough Hitech GP 44.865s
2 Alex Ninovic Rodin Motorsport +0.069s
3 Rowan Campbell-Pilling Argenti Motorsport +0.217s
4 Mika Abrahams Hitech GP +0.249s
5 Zack Scoular Xcel Motorsport +0.274s
6 Reza Seewooruthun Hitech GP +0.280s
7 Yuanpu Cui Argenti Motorsport +0.323s
8 James Higgins Rodin Motorsport +0.324s
9 Abbi Pulling Rodin Motorsport +0.388s
10 Jack Sherwood Rodin Motorsport +0.395s
Race 3 grid
1 Fairclough 44.857s
2 Ninovic +0.060s
3 Campbell-Pilling +0.161s
4 Abrahams +0.223s
5 Higgins +0.239s
6 Seewooruthun +0.250s
7 Scoular +0.262s
8 Cui +0.294s
9 Leo Robinson JHR Developments +0.373s
10 Sherwood +0.374s