Fresh from the dramatic season opener at the Calder Park Thunderdome, the eVirtual field heads to India to continue the Asia-Pacific leg of the series. Jaguar and Porsche will look to continue their strong start to the 2023 season but with the series moving from an oval to a road course any one of the 14 other teams could be ready to take advantage of a different track type. Q1As usual, qualifying began with the Q1 session to determine the 6 drivers who would not be making the Indian eV-Prix. After strong debut races Hyundai and GP1 have moved out of the bottom 6, relegating K8ley and BMW to the first session of the day. It was BMW who hit straight back, with Kip Maxwell topping the times with a truly impressive lap time that saw him 1.4 seconds clear of the trailing pack. That trailing pack was much closer together, headed by American Cosmo Roberts for Opel and K8ley’s Christodoulou. Shortly behind them was the first start for the new factory Maserati team, with Gianluca di Stefano putting in an impressive effort to put him well ahead of his ex-FV teammate Garcia. Rounding out the top 6 were Hölzberg and Brzyski, with both the recently relegated teams to Q1 getting both cars straight back out of the session. Less lucky were the Lamborghini team, who again struggled for pace and found themselves with a double DNQ. Also raising eyebrows with their failure to make the race were former FV competitors Vocquelin and Garcia, although Vocquelin will be gutted with his 0.2 second gap to safety. Bringing up the rear were the Thunderhead Toyota’s, with a disastrous session for Izaya Yuki seeing him a full 4 seconds off the pace of his teammate Drake Davies. Q2As the full field took to the track and the lap times fell in Q2, it became clear that Porsche’s oval pace was not able to translate over to the road course of Buddh International Circuit. Indeed when the chequered flag flew the pole sitter from Calder Park, Steven Kasami, found himself knocked out and starting on the last row of the grid only ahead of Bentley’s Viktor Östberg. Both drivers were visibly struggling to string together an error free lap throughout the session, finding themselves multiple seconds off of the pace. At the head of the field, the session was headed by Jaguar, with Jochem van Snelheid returning to the top of the table after a disappointing opening race. This was a session decided by such fine margins though, with Zozulya less than 0.1 seconds behind and Kip Maxwell again impressing to follow them in 3rd. Renault had a very strong performance with Thunder and Einarsson both solidly through to Q3 in 4th and 6th. Splitting them was the eV2 graduate Urmo Kruuda, continuing a solid start to his rookie eVirtual campaign. Ethan Matthews took a solid 7th place ahead of Q1 qualifiers Roberts and Brzyski. The battle for the final place was hotly contested, with 3 drivers separated by only 1 tenth. Christodoulou was unlucky to not join his teammate in Q3 after setting an almost identical time to Q1, falling just short at the death to Lada’s Sam Hudson who continued his team’s record of consistent Q3 appearances. Porsche were another team to fall just short of the top 10, with Barclay and Bergkvist both just shy of the time required. They lead the Arrow Mercedes duo and the first big surprise of the session, Maximilian Thunström. While only coming 1 second behind his Dutch teammate, the competitiveness of the eVirtual field meant that this 1 second had become the difference between 1st place for van Snelheid and 16th for Round 1’s winner. Just behind him was the impressive di Stefano, placing his Maserati 17th on the grid for the teams first start. Further behind it was disappointment for debutants GP1 who weren’t able to repeat the pace they showed last time out with Stefánsson only managing 18th. The greater shock was reserved for the championship leading Manziel team who only managed 19th with Dominykas Zvironas as the team struggled to match their oval form and found themselves slipping down the pecking order. Bentley and Hyundai also found themselves down the bottom of the field, with a lot of work to do in tomorrow’s race. Q3After a strong run from American Opel driver Cosmo Roberts, Q3 was where it all came to an end. A gust of wind caught Roberts out as he went through the Turn 10/11 sweeper, and he dropped multiple seconds on his fast lap, dropping him to 10th on the grid. Also struggling down in the 1:18s were Kip Maxwell and Aron Einarsson, both looking for a solid result after retiring in Australia. After success in Q2 Jochem van Snelheid couldn’t match his prior pace and slipped to 7th on the grid, behind the McLaren of Oleksandr Zozulya. The battle for pole came down to the closely matched top 5 group of Brzyski, Hudson, Kruuda, Matthews and Thunder, with all of them setting lap times well into the 1:17s. It was Brzyski who set the early pace in the K8ley, having battled through all 3 qualifying sessions to put himself into a chance of pole position. Hudson and Matthews both fell just short, with the finest of margins putting them in 4th and 5th. Both Thunder and Kruuda were able to beat the time of Brzyski though, putting them in the battle for pole position. After a brilliant final lap it was Urmo Kruuda who took pole for his 2nd race, just shading Kiara Thunder who will line up in 2nd tomorrow. With a whole new group of contenders at the front of the field, the drama will continue in eVirtual at the Indian eV-Prix. Final Qualifying Classification
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