Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Alex Ninovic and Kanato Le topped a session each in GB3’s disrupted qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps on Friday.
Ninovic led Rodin Motorsport team-mate Gianmarco Pradel in Q1 to take pole for Saturday’s opening contest, with Pradel again second in Q2 behind Hillspeed’s Le, who scored his maiden pole.
But two leading contenders will start all three of the weekend’s races from the back of the grid, with Hillspeed’s Freddie Slater and Hitech GP’s Deagen Fairclough both failing to register a representative time after hitting trouble in Q1.
Slater came to a halt in the first sector on just his second lap, and Q1 was then red-flagged with four minutes remaining when Fairclough, Argenti Motorsport with Prema’s Luca Fluxa and Hillspeed’s Hiyu Yamakoshi collided at the Bus Stop chicane and all came to a halt.
With the session not resuming, Ninovic’s 2m14.905s lap was good enough to seal race one pole by 0.2 seconds from Pradel. Velocity Racing Development’s Hugo Schwarze was third ahead of Xcel Motorsport’s points leader Patrick Heuzenroeder.
JHR Developments’ Noah Lisle took fifth just before the red flag, with Elite’s Will Macintyre sixth, Le seventh and Lisle’s team-mate Kai Daryanani one second off the pace in eighth. Hitech’s Keanu Al Azhari and Nikita Johnson had both failed to set a representative lap when the session was halted, and are due to start race one from 20th and 22nd respectively.
Slater, Fairclough and Fluxa were unable to take part in Q2, which was led initially once more by Ninovic with a 2m14.815s. Le lowered the pace to a 2m13.917s and then improved further to a 2m13.740s to secure race two pole.
Al Azhari took second away from Ninovic, but the pair were then beaten by Pradel. Ninovic responded to reclaim third, while Pradel set a new personal best to cement his second front-row starting spot of the weekend.
Johnson improved on his final attempt to snatch third from Ninovic, and Yamakoshi also went faster on taking the chequered flag to steal fifth from Al Azhari.
Macintyre was seventh ahead of JHR’s Dion Gowda – the pair also going quicker on their final tours – while Heuzenroeder’s final effort only put him 10th behind Lisle.
Qualifying round-up
Race 1 grid
1 Alex Ninovic Rodin Motorsport 2m14.905s
2 Gianmarco Pradel Rodin Motorsport +0.223s
3 Hugo Schwarze Velocity Racing Development +0.567s
4 Patrick Heuzenroeder Xcel Motorsport +0.680s
5 Noah Lisle JHR Developments +0.867s
6 Will Macintyre Elite Motorsport +0.900s
7 Kanato Le Hillspeed +0.974s
8 Kai Daryanani JHR Developments +1.066s
9 Yuanpu Cui Argenti w/ Prema + 1.384s
10 Jack Sherwood Xcel Motorsport 1.444s
Race 2 grid
1 Le 2m13.740s
2 Pradel +0.382s
3 Nikita Johnson Hitech GP +0.663s
4 Ninovic +0.765s
5 Hiyu Yamakoshi Hillspeed +0.795s
6 Keanu Al Azhari Hitech GP +0.862s
7 Macintyre +0.968s
8 Dion Gowda JHR Developments +1.018s
9 Lisle +1.019s
10 Heuzenroeder +1.070s