Photo: Jakob Ebrey Photography
Hillspeed’s Freddie Slater will start the first two races of the new GB3 season from pole after dominating qualifying.
For 2025, the grids for races one and two are determined by two 15-minute sessions, and Slater was half a second quicker than anybody in the first session and set a new GB3 lap record in session two.
Following two warm-up laps in session one, Velocity Racing Development’s Hugo Schwarze posted the first representative time, a 1m54.348s. Next to cross the line was Slater, who went 1.6s quicker.
Slater improved to a 1m52.661s with his next effort despite catching Schwarze through the final few corners. After a slow lap to cool his tyres, Slater lowered the pace further to a 1m52.384s, and he went faster still on his final attempt with a 1m52.194s.
His team-mate Hiyu Yamakoshi was best of the rest early on before Alex Ninovic moved up to second ahead of Rodin Motorsport stablemate Gianmarco Pradel. JHR Developments’ Noah Lisle moved ahead of the pair, but Pradel responded to clinch a front-row spot.
Ninovic was relegated to fifth by his team-mate Abbi Pulling, who made a series of late improvements to grab fourth. Nikita Johnson was the fastest Hitech GP driver in sixth, JHR’s Kai Daryanani was seventh, while Yamakoshi was shuffled back to eight despite improving on his final lap.
Hitech’s pre-season favourite Deagen Fairclough struggled throughout. He ended the session in 13th, and a post-qualifying penalty for a track limits infringement shuffled him back further to 16th.
Slater led the field out for the second session, and used the clear air to dominate again. He posted a 1m52.039s on his first lap, and made two further improvements to lower the pace to a 1m51.647s, which was a new lap record and enough to keep him ahead of the rest.
Ninovic held second throughout to take a front-row spot for race two, having initially been a huge 0.8s adrift of Slater before halving the deficit to 0.427s late on.
Lisle was again third, with Yamakoshi taking fourth with his final effort ahead of Pradel by 0.013s. Pulling was close behind in sixth, with Johnson only 0.002s further adrift. Xcel’s Motorsport’s Patrick Heuzenroeder was 1s off the outright pace in eighth.
Fairclough was 11th ahead of Macintyre. With the fastest times coming in session two, the pair are both due to start from the front row of the reversed grid in race three.
Qualifying results
Race one grid
1 Freddie Slater Hillspeed 1m52.194s
2 Gianmarco Pradel Rodin Motorsport +0.556s
3 Noah Lisle JHR Developments +0.588s
4 Abbi Pulling Rodin Motorsport +0.719s
5 Alex Ninovic Rodin Motorsport +0.750s
6 Nikita Johnson Hitech GP +0.853s
7 Kai Daryanani JHR Developments +1.003s
8 Hiyu Yamakoshi Hillspeed +1.021s
9 Kanata Le Hillspeed +1.126s
10 Dion Gowda Xcel Motorsport +1.142s
Race two grid
1.Slater 1m51.647s
2 Ninovic +0.427s
3 Lisle +0.752s
4 Yamakoshi 0.920s
5 Pradel +0.933s
6 Pulling +0.985s
7 Johnson +0.987s
8 Patrick Heuzenroeder Xcel Motorsport +1.032s
9 Daryanani +1.068s
10 Gowda +1.084s