Leon leads Shields in Euroformula’s Spa qualifying

Photo: Fotospeedy

Noel Leon was fastest in Euroformula qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps by 0.118 seconds to claim his first pole position in the series.

It was a calm session with only 10 cars on the lengthy track, and BVM Racing’s Francesco Simonazzi was the driver to beat at first. He was fastest by 1.746 seconds, and when he improved his pace in the final five minutes of the session he was still over a second clear of the opposition.

But at that point it looked like several of Motopark’s drivers were yet to lap at their true pace, with Jakob Bergmeister 1.056s back in second place but Leon 3.315s behind in seventh and with Bryce Aron and Cian Shields even slower than that.

It all changed in the final four minutes, with Leon posting a 2m11.123s to move clear of Simonazzi by 0.521s while Bergmeister improved in third but was still 1.458s off the pace.

Shields got within two tenths of Leon with less than three minutes to go, and CryptoTower Racing Team’s Josh Mason pipped Simonazzi to third place while Aron finally set a representative laptime an rose to fifth.

Another improvement from Shields was not enough for pole but did secure him second place, and Simonazzi moved back up to third by improving in the final minute.

That left series returnee Mason in fouth, Aron in fifth and CryptoTower’s debuting Gerrard Xie in ixth.

Qualifying results