Photo: ACI Sport
Sebastian Wheldon pulled out a stunning lap right at the end of qualifying to grab pole position for the final round of the inaugural FIA-backed Formula Regional European Championship.
The MP Motorsport driver had to push to the limit to grab top spot, with race one winner Jan Przyrowski having lowered the benchmark to 1m34.356s with just a minute on the clock. But Wheldon clocked a 1m34.271s to improve by 0.064s and take his second pole of the weekend.
Prema’s Kean Nakamura-Berta will start alongside Wheldon on the front row, having topped Group B by just 0.003s from R-ace GP’s Emanuele Olivieri, who will start next to Przyrowski on the second row.
Nakamura-Berta and Wheldon go into the final race seven and 18 points respectively behind Olivieri, although Rashid Al Dhaheri, the fourth driver still in contention, will start from the seventh row after a disappointing qualifying.
Olivieri set the early pace in Group B, first on track this morning, with a 1m34.651s, with Aston Martin junior Newman Chi slotting into second, 0.222s adrift.
Into the final four minutes, the R-ace GP pair of Olivieri and Yuki Sano upped the pace, with Sano going fastest in both the first and third sectors but falling just short of Olivieri who posted a 1m34.406s with a purple time in the middle sector.
Nakamura-Berta had been building up speed slowly, languishing in 11th place before improving to third with two minutes on the clock.
With Olivieri unable to improve, Nakamura-Berta was cranking up the speed, moving ahead of Sano for second on his eighth lap but still 0.040s behind Olivieri. But he had more pace to deliver, setting an overall sector best in the middle third to cross the line in 1m34.403s, beating the championship leader’s time by a scant 0.002s.
Wheldon and Przyrowski were immediately at the top of the times in the second session, with the second MP Motorsport car of Alexander Abkhazava in third.
After a cool lap, all three improved again on their sixth laps, the order remaining unchanged but with less than a minute remaining the Pole jumped to the top, the first to beat Nakamura-Berta’s time from Group B.
Race two pole would therefore go to the fastest in Group B but would it be Przyrowski or Wheldon? The Anglo-American left nothing on the line as he took the chequered flag with a lap 0.085s quicker than the RPM man’s best to claim first place for a race he needs to win.