Home Formula RegionalFRegional Oceania Lindblad leads top 12 split by 0.4s in FRegional Oceania qualifying

Lindblad leads top 12 split by 0.4s in FRegional Oceania qualifying

by Ida Wood

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