Brock Kidd has taken pole position for the second round of the eVirtual World Championship - the Singapore eV-Prix - after a dramatic qualifying session that saw no fewer than three red flags. For a large portion of the session, Felipe Cesar looked as though he would make it two poles from two races, but in the dying moments a stellar lap from Kidd deposed the Brazilian by over four tenths of a second, while an even later effort from Will Taylor pulled him from outside of the top ten to demote Cesar from the front row.
The Maserati Cerberus driver therefore starts third, alongside the second Jaguar of Oleksandr Zozulya, the Ukrainian showing far better than during the first qualifying round two weeks ago, despite a small spin early in the session. Zozulya was far from the last drive to come unstuck in the 30-minute shootout however, as just 8 minutes in Aron Einarsson clipped the wall at the Anderson Bridge, with his Renault coming to stop on the outside of the following hairpin, necessitating a red flag for it's recovery. Once restarted, the session ran without incident for nearly 10 minutes, until Kip Maxwell became the second victim of the tricky Singapore circuit, misjudging his braking at turn 18 and understeering into the barriers. The third and final stoppage came just two minutes after the restart, when a collision between Alexander McLaughlin and Robert Stefansson left the Mitsubishi stranded on track, it's front left suspension broken. McLaughlin had been on a fast lap when a miscommunication between the Lada Sport team and it's Icelandic driver saw Stefansson move into McLaughlin's path, the collision then inevitable. Stefansson dragged his Lada back to the pits - albeit minus the rear wing - but the team were unable to fix the car before the session ended. For the other 20 drivers, it was a case of timing it right to get a lap in, though come the end of the session many drivers - including third placed Cesar - were left frustrating, feeling their best lap had been ruined by red flags. Behind the top four, Sebastian Bergkvist showed better pace for Porsche than in Australia while Stuart Harrison makes it two top six starts from two races for the Renault outfit, with the Tesla team locking out row four behind - Jochem van Snelheid just getting the better of Luke Stokey. Steffen Rosenberg will be hoping to turn this top ten start into points after qualifying ninth, while the second Maserati Cerberus of Ryota Yoshida completes the top ten. Further back, McLaughlin starts only 13th following his incident, with fellow crashees Maxwell, Stefansson and Einarsson lining up 15th, 18th and 20th respectively. Olen Inman struggled once again while it was a bad session for both Thunderhead Audi and Nakley Toyota, the latter only denied a back row lockout by just under a tenth of a second. See below for full qualifying classification:
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2024
Categories |