Lindblad takes FRegional Oceania pole, but still looking for more pace

Photo: Toyota Gazoo Racing NZ

Arvid Lindblad was fastest in the second Formula Regional Oceania qualifying session at Taupo, but ended it still seeking more pace.

The Red Bull junior and M2 Competition driver qualified fourth and finished third in race one on Saturday, and began Q2 on Sunday morning in one of several packs of cars that formed as drivers went around the track slowly.

There was an expectation that it would take a few laps for tyres to reach their peak performance window, and that they would then move beyond it pretty quickly after. That made timing push laps crucial, since traffic could prevent a shot at pole.

MTEC Motorsport’s Shawn Rashid was fastest at first, then Giles Motorsport’s Will Brown demoted him to second. Brown set a 1m23.843s, and M2’s Michael Shin got within 0.048 seconds of it as MTEC’s Patrick Heuzenroeder went fifth and Lindblad’s first flying lap provisionally put him in fifth.

Later to cross the line were MTEC’s Zack Scoular and M2’s Nikita Johnson, with the former beating Brown by 0.019s then Johnson going 0.174s faster than him. M2’s Matias Zagazeta jumped to fifth after finding clear air, leaving Lindblad down in ninth.

The second flying laps came in the second half of the 15-minute session, and Brown improved to 1m23.589s to reclaim top spot. He was soon down in sixth though.

Zagazeta lowered the pace to 1m23.128s, leading Lindblad by 0.085s, Scoular by 0.104s and Shin by 0.148s. Johnson also beat Brown, and after finding a gap on track MTEC’s Josh Pierson did too.

Cooldown laps for all followed, with half of the field then returning to full pace on the lap after. That only proved beneficial to two drivers, as Brown improved by 0.158s and team-mate Alex Crosbie gained in 13th place.

With less than two-and-a-half minutes to go Pierson utilised space again to go fourth fastest, then with 23s left on the clock Lindblad took pole from Zagazeta by 0.089s.

Pierson pitted, several other pole contenders were a few tenths of a second slower than the best laps, and there were no changes in the top 10 after the chequered flag.

“Definitely a big step forward. I still feel we can make another step, but I was a lot happier than yesterday,” said Lindblad afterwards.

“I wasn’t super comfortable in the beginning, on the first sort of lap or two, and I kind of just accepted what I have underneath me is what I’ve got. And I really tried to adapt and do what I could to extract the laptime. So the lap was decent, but it wasn’t super easy.”

Qualifying results