Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Mika Abrahams claimed his fist British Formula 4 pole positions at Donington Park as championship leader Will Macinytre ran into issues.
The Hitech GP driver was running outside the top 10 with less than five minutes left on the clock when he ran wide at the Old Hairpin. His car came to a stop in the gravel, bringing out red flags and causing an early end to his qualifying.
At this point Fortec Motorsports’ Abrahams was top of the order, but there was still time to find for his opposition.
Macintyre had set the pace in the opening laps, but was soon knocked off the top spot by Abrahams who gradually dropped the fastest time down to 1m27.815s ahead of Louis Sharp and single-seater debutant Freddie Slater.
Sharp and Slater both improved after the session’s restart, but neither could match Abrahams’ earlier benchmark and he took pole for race four.
Sharp ended qualifying second quickest and 0.127 seconds behind Abrahams, while Slater was third fastest with the returning Double R Racing team.
Abrahams’s second fastest lap was enough to take pole for the second race of the weekend – with race one being the postponed race from Snetterton earlier in the season. Sharp will again start on the second row of the grid with Slater third.
Hitech’s Gabriel Stilp was fourth fastest overall in qualifying ahead of Aqil Alibhai, who improved late on to get into fifth for Virtuosi Racing.
James Higgins and James Piszcyk were sixth and seventh, while Gustav Jonsson, Noah Lisle and Jack Sherwood completed the top 10. Jonsoon’s second-best lap put him fourth on the race two grid, ahead of Stilp and Higgins.
Macintyre will start race two from 14th, and the final race of the weekend from 13th.
Results round-up
Race 2 grid
1 Mika Abrahams Fortec Motorsports 1m27.938s
2 Louis Sharp Carlin +0.019s
3 Freddie Slater Double R Racing +0.265s
4 Gustav Jonson Chris Dittmann Racing +0.502s
5 Gabriel Stilp Hitech GP +0.534s
6 James Higgins Fortec Motorsports +0.539s
7 James Piszyck Hitech GP +0.682s
8 Aqil Alibhai Virtuosi Racing +0.690s
9 Noah Lisle Carlin +0.745s
10 Kanato Le Hitech GP +0.770s
Race 4 grid
1 Abrahams 1m27.815s
2 Sharp +0.127s
3 Slater +0.171s
4 Stilp +0.284s
5 Alibhai +0.336s
6 Higgins +0.391s
7 Piszcyk +0.415s
8 Jonsson +0.489s
9 Lisle +0.666s
10 Jack Sherwood Chris Dittmann Racing +0.677s