It’s Mathershaw Porsche’s Enrique Ruiz who will lead the field away from pole position in tomorrow’s Canadian V-Prix, after the Brazilian set a scorching time to beat Downton’s Klaas van Snelheid by just over one hundredth of a second, with the Lucas of Marcus Thunder completing the top three. Q1 Q1 has become something of a non-event since the early stages of the season, and was even more the case today after Highwind missed the strategy deadline. With Scuderia Meteor looking more likely to qualify for some rather unwanted records – instead of Q2 – the session was a very relaxed affair for Arrow and North Star. Johan Halvosen was an ever present car on track throughout the session, with North Star keen to showcase their beautiful 100th V-Prix livery as much as possible, but it was Yakumi Takahashi who set the fastest time; just under two tenths up on the Dane in second place. The Arrow pair only completed seven laps between them in the entire session, but it was comfortably enough for them to make it onto the grid, along with both North Stars. The vast chasm between the two regular Q2 teams and the bottom two was clear as ever. In Highwind’s defence, the day was a total test session for the team as their fate was sealed before the day even began, but Scuderia Meteor looked worryingly unprepared, underwhelming, and ultimately underpowered as they struggled to get within a few tenths of Milkovich; who himself was a quarter of a second down on Brynildsen’s fourth fastest time. Q2 The main qualifying session began with the Downton and Mathershaw Porsche drivers trading fastest times between themselves, with Marcus Thunder looking just as comfortable with his car as he was in practice, and Felix Perez consistently up amongst the top six. On their final runs, it was the runaway championship leader Nathaniel Powers who looked on course for pole after the first two sectors, but the four time World Champion ran ever so slightly wide at the final chicane and brushed the Wall of Champions, losing a tenth of a second. It was Enrique Ruiz who hooked up the best overall lap, with the Brazilian making up time in the final sector to put it on pole for the 32nd time in his career. Klaas van Snelheid was just over one hundredth of a second behind, with Thunder, Simon, and Perez all within one tenth of Ruiz, with Powers down in sixth after his brush against the barrier. The top four will all start on the Soft tyres tomorrow, with Perez and Powers on the Supersofts. Behind the top six; Wagner will start from seventh as the highest placed Medium runner, with Thunstrom, Kangur, and Xylander completing the top ten. Sergio Alvarez was right behind his younger teammate for the duration of the session and, after qualifying eleventh, completed a strong qualifying performance for ‘The Worker Bees’. Franklin were left scratching their heads after a dismal session left Addison twelfth and Forini sixteenth, the three times Constructors’ champions looking totally bemused by their poor qualifying. Forini will share the eighth row of the grid with Jean Mattson, who put together a phenomenal lap to drag his IGP into fifteenth place. Will Hoskins could only manage seventeenth for FIRST’s 100th V-Prix, finding himself in the mix with the likes of Barclay, Ryan, and Halvosen; the Dane looking relatively happy to have out-qualified both AMRs and Arrows. Oleksandr Zozulya ended the session dead last, three tenths down on Brynildsen in 25th. The Ukranian, who has been given a second run out for Ingram this weekend, this time in place of James Vasquez, encountered traffic on his fast lap and was then resigned to the garage for the remainder of the session, his car suffering with gremlins in the engine. The full qualifying classification is below:
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