Rowland beats Celis to pole for NEC finale at Zandvoort

Photo: Chris Schotanus

Oliver Rowland topped the final qualifying session of the Formula Renault 2.0 NEC season, denying Alfonso Celis a surprise pole position at Zandvoort.

Celis, who contested the FIA F3 European Championship race at the Dutch circuit a fortnight ago, was the pacesetter in the first segment of qualifying. The Mexican was the only driver to go below the 1m48s mark and was 0.751s quicker than Steijn Schothorst.

Rowland’s half of qualifying was twice disturbed by red flags but he still managed to better the benchmark, getting down to a 1m46.829s.

Roman Mavlanov was the only driver within a second of Rowland in the second group and will head up the second row of the grid ahead of Schothorst.

Row three will be an all-British affair, with Raoul Owens taking third in his group and championship leader Matt Parry doing the same in the first group. A top six result in the first race should guarantee the Caterham young driver the title.

Andrea Pizzitola will start seventh ahead of Dennis Olsen. Jack Aitken – who will need to outscore Parry in race one by 15 points to take the title fight on to race two – will be ninth with Roman Beregech completing the top ten.

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