
Photo: Bruce Jenkins
Arvid Lindblad clinched pole for Formula Regional Oceania race one at Manfeild early in the first qualifying session of the weekend.
His fourth successive pole came courtesy of a 1m03.693s on his third flying lap, and he completed three more flyers but failed to improve thereon. He had anticipated it would not be an easy session.
Traffic was a limiting factor, and it was a similar story for the majority of the field as their personal best laptimes came early on. Those on cooldown laps then had to pull out of the way of their rivals who were still lapping at pace.
Of those who did improve their laptimes, only two actually changed their position after the 15-minute session’s halfway point.
It was an incredibly close fight for pole, with Lindblad clinching top spot by 0.112 seconds over M2 Competition team-mate Nikita Johnson.
MTEC Motorsport’s Josh Pierson was a further 0.053s behind, and four more drivers were within a third of a second of Lindblad including Giles Motorsport’s series returnee Tommy Smith. He will start his comeback race from fourth place.
The top 14 were covered by just 0.437s, with a tenth of a second between sixth and 13th, and Giles’ Barrett Wolfe was the only driver more than a second off pole.
One of the drivers to climb up the order was M2’s Sebastian Manson, who jumped from 12th to seventh with a few minutes to go. MTEC’s Zack Scoular then improved from 13th to 12th on the grid.
Qualifying results
Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Arvid Lindblad | M2 Competition | 1m03.693s | 11 | |
2 | Nikita Johnson | M2 Competition | 1m03.805s | +0.112s | 12 |
3 | Josh Pierson | MTEC Motorsport | 1m03.858s | +0.165s | 13 |
4 | Tommy Smith | Giles Motorsport | 1m03.921s | +0.228s | 12 |
5 | Alex Crosbie | Giles Motorsport | 1m03.984s | +0.291s | 12 |
6 | Patrick Heuzenroeder | MTEC Motorsport | 1m04.001s | +0.308s | 13 |
7 | Sebastian Manson | M2 Competition | 1m04.022s | +0.329s | 13 |
8 | Nicholas Monteiro | MTEC Motorsport | 1m04.047s | +0.354s | 13 |
9 | Nicolas Stati | Kiwi Motorsport | 1m04.059s | +0.366s | 12 |
10 | Matias Zagazeta | M2 Competition | 1m04.065s | +0.372s | 12 |
11 | Michael Shin | M2 Competition | 1m04.081s | +0.388s | 12 |
12 | Zack Scoular | MTEC Motorsport | 1m04.089s | +0.396s | 11 |
13 | Enzo Yeh | M2 Competition | 1m04.100s | +0.407s | 12 |
14 | Shawn Rashid | MTEC Motorsport | 1m04.130s | +0.437s | 13 |
15 | Jett Bowling | Kiwi Motorsport | 1m04.375s | +0.682s | 12 |
16 | James Lawley | Kiwi Motorsport | 1m04.630s | +0.937s | 12 |
17 | Barrett Wolfe | Giles Motorsport | 1m04.973s | +1.280s | 12 |