After making his Formula Virtual debut in testing earlier this week, Brock Kidd stamped his authority in the eVirtual title fight with a pole at home, in stark contrast to his rivals at Jaguar who had their worst qualifying of the season. There were other surprises as well, most notably Nakley’s Rodrigo Sanchez who stunned with 5th. The only driver who really challenged Kidd throughout the session was Felipe Cesar. He was at one point just half a tenth behind Kidd after a superb lap, but the Downton driver eventually went even faster to end 0.16 seconds ahead. Cesar was backed up by his teammate Ryota Yoshida – another who took part in FV testing – who continued his late upturn in form with 3rd.
Behind them, there were some unusual faces. Robert Stefansson, fresh off his fantastic podium last time out, carried across that confidence and qualified 4th. Behind him, Sanchez pulled a cracker of a lap out at the end to pip Alexander McLaughlin to the top 5. Luke Stokey, who has been put in the shade by teammate Jochem van Snelheid for most of this season, had a solid session with 7th. Renault struggled in comparison to usual rivals Mitsubishi, with Harrison a tenth off McLaughlin in 8th and Einarsson down in 14th in a torrid session for the race winner last time out. Steven Kasami finished 9th, with Arrow looking to bounce back from a double DNF in Brazil. The biggest strugglers of the session came from former title leaders Jaguar – Oleksandr Zozulya was nowhere throughout the session and scrapped 10th, putting a massive dent in his title hopes. Will Taylor complained about the balance of his car throughout qualifying and an 18th place grid slot was the result. Judson Sikes was a solid 11th, but 8 tenths off his teammate. Behind him and Ivan Lesic (12th), Kip Maxwell spun twice, both times when he was set to improve, leaving the other Downton down in 13th. If Renault struggled, Porsche barely showed up. Sebastian Bergkvist was disappointed with 15th and Olen Inman was even further back in 20th. Two other main strugglers were van Snelheid, who was just ahead on Taylor in 17th, and Otso Toivonen, in a season worst 22nd. On the flipside, Luiz Santos had a better qualifying than usual, with a quietly impressive 19th – over a second and a half ahead of his teammate. Indeed, Niklas Kehlmann was a full 1.2 seconds off the next car in 23rd, and Refugio Boyer another 4 tenths off in last – nearly 3 full seconds behind teammate Sanchez. See below for full times:
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