Lindblad puts it on pole then saves his tyres at Teretonga

Photo: Bruce Jenkins

Arvid Lindblad built an advantage for himself in Formula Regional Oceania race one at Teretonga by topping the first qualifying session.

The immediate advantage was the fact that he will be starting from pole, and the second aspect was that he put less miles on his tyres than many of his rivals.

Lindblad became the first driver this week to set a sub-54s lap, and on sixth lap of 13 in the session he posted a 53.776s that he would be unable to improve upon but ultimately be good enough to earn him pole by 0.232 seconds. That was a larger gap than second to seventh place.

The majority of drivers did 15 or 16 laps, and were out until the chequered flag waved on the 15-minute session as they sought to improve their pace and their grid position. Lindblad was able to sit out the final minutes in the pits, giving him a tyre life advantage for when he uses the rubber again to race on.

“It was pretty good,” Lindblad said afterwards, hailing a step forward that had been compared to the first three rounds of the season. “The car today was on rails, I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”

Matias Zagazeta and Nikita Johnson made it an M2 Competition lockout of the top three positions, with Patrick Heuzenroeder then leading a trio of MTEC Motorsport drivers split by just 0.019s.

Once Lindblad was in the pits, the only changes to the top 10 were MTEC’s Zack Scoular climbing one spot to sixth and Giles Motorsport’s Tommy Smith going ninth fastest.

It was a bad session for Kiwi Motorsport’s Jett Bowling and James Lawley, with the former having offs that included a spin after the chequered flag.

Qualifying results