Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Fionn McLaughlin dominated British F4 qualifying at Snetterton and claimed pole position for both race one and race three ahead of Henry Joslyn.
The Hitech ace was the only driver to set a laptime quicker than 1m49s. His time of 1m48.949s was 0.138s quicker than Fortec Motorsport’s Joslyn in second place.
Hitech’s Thomas Bearman set the pace early on before Argenti Motorsport’s Ethan Jeff-Hall became the first driver to go quicker than 1m50s around the Snetterton circuit. He was soon joined by Rodin Motorsport’s James Piszyck and Xcel Motorsport’s Theo Palmer as lap times tumbled. Palmer briefly claimed provisional pole position before he was knocked off the top spot by McLaughlin.
Palmer improved in a later attempt, but couldn’t match McLaughlin’s time and the Hitech driver further extended the gap at the top of the order.
Late improvements for Joslyn and Virtuosi Racing’s Martin Molnar dropped Palmer back to fourth in the overall fastest times, though he remained the second fastest rookie.
Xcel’s Yuhao Fu jumped up 14 positions with his final flying lap to go fifth quickest overall ahead of Hitech’s Leo Robinson and Jeff-Hall. Rodin’s Adam Al Azhari took eighth as JHR Developments’ Rowan Campbell-Pilling and Chris Dittmann Racing’s Tommy Harfield completed the top 10.
Championship leader Piszcyk ended the session 13th quickest, just outside those reversed for the Race 2 grid, where Argenti’s August Raber and JHR’s Joel Bergstrom will occupy the front row of the grid.
McLaughlin and Joslyn also topped the second-fastest lap chart, followed by Palmer within one tenth of a second. Jeff-Hall and Adam Al Azhari rounded off the top five 0.236 and 0.337 seconds off McLaughlin’s time.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Fionn McLaughlin Hitech 1m49.209s
2 Henry Joslyn Fortec Motorsport +0.072s
3 Theo Palmer Xcel Motorsport +0.099s
4 Ethan Jeff-Hall Argenti Motorsport +0.236s
5 Adam Al Azhari Rodin Motorsport +0.337s
6 Martin Molnar Virtuosi Racing +0.470s
7 Tommy Harfield Chris Dittmann Racing +0.486s
8 August Raber Argenti Motorsport +0.571s
9 Joel Bergstrom Chris Dittmann Racing +0.599s
10 Leo Robinson Hitech +0.601s
Race 3 grid
1 McLaughlin 1m48.949s
2 Joslyn +0.138s
3 Molnar +0.212s
4 Palmer +0.244s
5 Yuhao Fu Xcel Motorsport +0.370s
6 Robinson +0.414s
7 Jeff-Hall +0.447s
8 Al Azhari +0.478s
9 Rowan Campbell-Pilling JHR Developments +0.527s
10 Harfield +0.537s