Scoular pips Brown to first pole of FRegional Oceania season

Photo: Toyota Gazoo Racing NZ

MTEC Motorsport’s Zack Scoular pipped Giles Motorsport’s Will Brown by 0.078 seconds to claim pole in the first qualifying session of the Formula Regional Oceania season at Taupo.

There was drama early in Q1, with red flags waving one-and-a-half minutes into the 15-minute session and MTEC’s Patrick Heuzenroeder not joining the rush to get back on track when green flags waved again after a break of several minutes.

The first laptimes to be set were not at a representative pace, and MTEC’s Josh Pierson led the way in clean air with his first two laps. It was only six-and-a-half minutes in did flying laps actually get set, and Pierson posted a 1m24.336s.

That was soon beaten by Scoular’s 1m24.257s, and Brown squeezed between them with a 1m24.323s.

M2 Competition’s Matias Zagazeta went fourth fastest with a 1m24.483s, with team-mates Michael Shin and Arvid Lindblad also putting in sub-1m25s laps. The pair were soon beaten by MTEC’s Nicholas Monteiro, with a second covering the top nine at the session’s halfway mark.

Pierson improved to 1m24.178s next time by to briefly reclaim top spot, but Lindblad bettered him by 0.081s. Shin then pipped Lindblad by 0.006s, and when Zagazeta crossed the line he went 0.248s faster than him.

Scoular and Brown were shuffled down to fifth and seventh, but then jumped back up to first and second once they completed their flying laps. A 1m23.616s from Scoular would ultimately stand as the session’s fastest lap, and Brown’s effort kept him in second place until the end.

Running in clean air behind the rest of the pack was M2’s Nikita Johnson, and he used that to his benefit to go seventh fastest and then third – 0.177s off pole – as nobody else in the top 11 improved on their next lap.

His team-mate Sebastian Manson set a 1m24.755s to climb to 11th in the final four minutes, then Giles’ Alex Crosbie jumped two spots to 10th with 45s left on the clock and was just over a second slower than Scoular’s benchmark.

Johnson’s strategy somewhat backfired as he ended up being the first driver to meet the chequered flag, and moments before that MTEC’s Shawn Rashid jumped from 14th to 10th.

Lindblad made an improvement of a quarter of a second on his final lap and qualified fourth, as Heuzenroeder finally joined the rest of the field on track and completed an outlap in time to have one go at a flying lap. He shot up so sixth place with that single effort.

With nobody able to beat Scoular, it meant the Dubai-based driver claimed the first pole of his single-seater career.

Qualifying results