Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Ninovic continued to stamp his authority on the GB3 championship by topping both qualifying sessions at Silverstone.
The Australian bettered his pre-event testing pace by almost 0.9 seconds, and he is due to be joined on the front row by Argenti with Prema’s Reza Seewooruthun’s in race one and Hitech GP’s Deagen Fairclough in race two.
Keanu Al Azhari posted an early 1m55.083s benchmark in Q1 but, following close behind, his team-mate Fairclough lapped more than a second faster.
Fairclough made no improvement on his next effort and was quickly shuffled back to fifth, as Al Azhari briefly reclaimed top spot with a 1m 53.789s.
Xcel Motorsport’s Patrick Heuzenroeder edged out the Alpine junior by 0.045s before Ninovic surged ahead by 0.466s.
Fairclough climbed back up to second and within 0.063s of Ninovic on his next lap, but he soon extended his advantage to 0.227s.
Ninovic became the first driver of the weekend to lap sub-1m53s to build his margin over Fairclough to 0.377s, while his team-mate Gianmarco Pradel moved up to third.
Seewooruthun claimed second on his penultimate lap, and then improved by a further 0.018s upon taking the chequered flag, but he was still 0.313s shy of Ninovic’s pole-winning effort.
Fairclough was 0.064s behind Seewooruthun, and just 0.055s ahead of Pradel who enjoyed an identical margin over Hillspeed’s new signing Yuanpu Cui in sixth.
Al Azhari slipped back to seventh, while JHR Developments’ Noah Lisle and Elite Motorsport’s Will Macintyre improved to eighth and ninth on their final laps.
The returning Michael Shin led the early stages of Q2 for Hillspeed with a 1m53.499s before Fairclough lowered the pace to a 1m52.739s to lead Al Azhari by 0.074s.
Ninovic soon claimed top spot by 0.231s by posting a 1m52.508s, and it would prove good enough to seal race two pole. Fairclough made two further improvements to reduce the deficit to 0.126s and secure second ahead of Al Azhari.
Heuzenroeder set a personal best on taking the chequered flag edge to beat Cui to fourth by 0.090s. Shin was just 0.024s behind his Hillspeed team-mate, and 0.027s ahead of Seewooruthun who climbed to sixth with his final effort.
Lisle was close behind in eighth, with Red Bull junior Enzo Tarnvanichkul ninth for Velocity Racing Development. Pradel struggled and ended up 12th, which provisionally secured him reversed-grid pole for race three.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Alex Ninovic Rodin Motorsport 1m52.965s
2 Reza Seewooruthun Argenti with Prema +0.313s
3 Deagen Fairclough Hitech +0.377s
4 Gianmarco Pradel Rodin Motorsport +0.432s
5 Patrick Heuzenroeder Xcel Motorsport +0.487s
6 Yuanpu Cui Hillspeed +0.495s
7 Keanu Al Azhari Hitech +0.565s
8 Noah Lisle JHR Developments +0.701s
9 Will Macintyre Elite Motorsport +0.706s
10 Michael Shin Hillspeed +0.718s
Race 2 grid
1 Ninovic 1m52.508s
2 Fairclough +0.126s
3 Al Azhari +0.163s
4 Heuzenroeder +0.326s
5 Cui +0.416s
6 Shin +0.440s
7 Seewooruthun +0.467s
8 Lisle +0.544s
9 Enzo Tarnvanichkul Velocity Racing Development +0.662s
10 Kai Daryanani JHR Developments +0.727s