Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Dion Gowda earned his first British Formula 4 pole position since May on a wet Knockhill circuit.
The Rodin Carlin driver jumped to the top of the leaderboard on his final lap of qualifying, setting a 54.067s laptime.
That was just 0.04 seconds quicker than William Macintyre, who had led the way for most of the session.
Gowda had topped the times early on, but dropped down the order as others found improvements.
Macintyre and Louis Sharp swapped times at the top of the order, and it was Hitech GP driver Macintyre on provisional pole when red flags were waved with five minutes left on the clock. Gabriel Stilp, who had been just inside the top 10, had an incident down the back straight and couldn’t get restarted.
When qualifying restarted, laptimes tumbled as the track conditions got better. Sharp briefly took first place, before Macinytre improved.
Neither could answer Gowda’s final improvement, despite Macintyre finding more pace on his final lap.
Macintyre will start from pole for race one, as his second-best lap was the fastest of anyone’s by 0.166s. He will share the front row in that race with Sharp, who was third quickest overall ahead of Argenti Motorsport’s championship newcomer Griffin Peebles and Kanato Le.
Aqil Alibhai improved late on to go sixth, ahead of Jack Sherwood and Gustav Jonsson, who was briefly second quickest midway through the session. Noah Lisle and Stilp completed the top 10, and Douwe Dedecker provisionally has the reversed-grid pole for race two having been 18th fastest.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 William Macintyre Hitech GP 54.137s
2 Louis Sharp Carlin +0.166s
3 Dion Gowda Carlin +0.258s
4 Jack Sherwood Chris Dittmann Racing +0.530s
5 Aqil Alibhai Virtuosi Racing +0.556s
6 Noah Lisle Carlin +0.689s
7 Gustav Jonsson Chris Dittmann Racing +0.722s
8 Kanato Le Hitech GP +0.752s
9 James Piszcyk Hitech GP +0.759s
10 Josh Irfan Carlin +0.796s
Race 3 grid
1 Gowda 54.067s
2 Macintyre +0.040s
3 Sharp +0.139s
4 Griffin Peebles Argenti Motorsport +0.240s
5 Le +0.400s
6 Alibahi +0.419s
7 Sherwood +0.487s
8 Jonsson +0.511s
9 Lisle +0.597s
10 Gabriel Stilp Hitech GP +0.710s