Max Fewtrell beat title tivals Yifei Ye and Christian Lundgaard to pole for the first Formula Renault Eurocup race at Hockenheim.
Josef Kaufmann Racing driver Ye set the benchmark in the first qualifying group, setting a 1m37.639s lap. Late in the session championship leader Lundgaard almost beat it, but the MP Motorsport driver fell short by 0.065s.
Fewtrell, out in Group B, did’t take long to beat Ye’s best, in fact doing the feat with his first timed lap. The R-ace GP driver continued to improve throughout the 15 minute session, lowering the bar to just 1m37.249s with his final attempt.
Victor Martins came closest to challenging Fewtrell, but he was almost a quarter of a second off the pace of his team-mate and fellow Renault Formula 1 junior.
Red Bull junior Neil Verhagen showed improved form to qualify fifth, ahead of Oscar Piastri and Lorenzo Colombo.
Logan Sargeant, who was briefly second fastest in Group A, dropped back to fourth before the chequered flag and lines up eighth for race one. Thomas Maxwell and Charles Milesi round out the top 10.
Doureid Ghattas topped the Northern European Cup battle in 21st, sharing the 11th row of the grid with title rival Gabriel Gandulia. Ghattas’s usual Anders Motorsport team-mate Phil Hill switched to ScoRace Team, and will start in 24th. All three drivers would win the title this weekend.
Qualifying results
| Group A | ? | Group B | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yifei Ye | Josef Kaufmann Racing | 1m37.639 | 1 | Max Fewtrell | R-ace GP | 1m37.249 | |
| 2 | Christian Lundgaard | MP Motorsport | 1m37.704 | 2 | Victor Martins | R-ace GP | 1m37.490 | |
| 3 | Oscar Piastri | Arden | 1m37.871 | 3 | Neil Verhagen | Tech 1 Racing | 1m37.674 | |
| 4 | Logan Sargeant | R-ace GP | 1m38.001 | 4 | Lorenzo Colombo | JD Motorsport | 1m37.707 | |
| 5 | Charles Milesi | R-ace GP | 1m38.143 | 5 | Thomas Maxwell | JD Motorsport | 1m37.817 | |
| 6 | Frank Bird | Tech 1 Racing | 1m38.229 | 6 | Alex Peroni | MP Motorsport | 1m37.940 | |
| 7 | Alexander Smolyar | Tech 1 Racing | 1m38.274 | 7 | Clement Novalak | Josef Kaufmann Racing | 1m38.063 | |
| 8 | Raul Guzman | Fortec Motorsports | 1m38.298 | 8 | Sami Taoufik | Arden | 1m38.566 | |
| 9 | Eliseo Martinez | AV Formula | 1m38.312 | 9 | Thomas Neubauer | Tech 1 Racing | 1m38.657 | |
| 10 | Arthur Rougier | Fortec Motorsports | 1m38.844 | 10 | Axel Matus | AV Formula | 1m38.714 | |
| 11 | Gabriel Gandulia | R-ace GP | 1m38.941 | 11 | Doureid Ghattas | Anders Motorsport | 1m38.747 | |
| 12 | Phill Hill | ScoRace Team | 1m39.103 | 12 | Vladimir Tziortzis | Fortec Motorsports | 1m38.916 | |
| 13 | Nikita Volegov | Arden | 1m39.133 | 13 | Christian Munoz | AV Formula | 1m40.058 | |
| 14 | Najiy Razak | JD Motorsport | 1m39.190 | 14 | Sharon Scolari | ScoRace Team | 1m43.021 | |
| 15 | Freek Schothorst | MP Motorsport | 1m39.285 | |||||