Klaas Van Snelheid was the fastest man on track this afternoon, followed closely by Ruiz and teammate Powers; the former doomed to start tomorrow's race from the back end of the grid. Because of this demotion, it is Marcus Thunder - the former Downton driver and V-Prix winner - who completes the top three. Q1 The session began with both North Stars leading the way, with the Westwood cars a couple of tenths back and seemingly almost under threat from Highwind. However, as time wore on and the track rubbered in, that threat seemed to disappear as Kinnumen and Barclay continued to find pace. They eventually went first and second fastest, Barclay before Kinnumen, while Halvosen was three tenths off and Kidd over four. In the end, Highwind's hopes were dashed, although they were closer to qualifying this time round being only two tenths off courtesy of Milkovich. Meteor never seemed like their hearts were in it, knowing they couldn't qualify even if they did somehow set a good laptime. Q2 In Q2 we didn't see the usual scramble to leave the pits at the beginning, but rather waves of cars every couple of minutes. This staggered nature had many worried about the possibility of traffic causing issues, but thankfully the problem never materialised. As a wide, open track the drivers had no issue making their way through. It was initially Ruiz and Simon who occupied the top two spots, with Downton trailing close behind. Thunder and Forini were looking strong and trading places inside the top five. However, it was with five minutes to go that qualifying was really decided. Klaas and Ruiz had been exchanging fastest laps, when suddenly the track became much faster. Anybody out on track was setting personal best times, and while Ruiz set a new personal best, Klaas managed to best it by just over a tenth to claim provisional pole. It was during this time that Thunder set his sensational laptime to put himself into fourth place, and Kangur also performed well to slot into fifth. However, as soon as the track had come good, it seemed to disappear again, before a minute later sector three seemed to be full of grip. With the track condition seemingly balancing on a knife edge, timing the run correctly would be slightly up to chance as well as strategic prowess. Klaas ended up staying on top, with Ruiz second, and Powers looked set to move from third onto pole, but an issue late in his final run forced him to abort the lap. Further down, both Franklins did well to put themselves inside the top ten, while Wagner rounded it out in tenth place. Thunstrom had a more promising qualifying than usual, and put himself eleventh, while Giodano will be disappointed with thirteenth after his strong showing yesterday. The Ingrams showed more promise than in Dubai, with Vasquez doing well in fourteenth and his temporary teammate only a mere two tenths back, showing he still has the pace for Formula Virtual. Tumo Kinnumen put in an excellent performance with the sixteenth fastest times, while all of his Q1 rivals - teammate Jules Barclay included - seemed to fall asleep at the wheel, filling out the bottom five spaces between them. AMR put themselves twentieth and twenty-first, but it will count for nothing as they will be demoted to the back row of the grid in tomorrow's V-Prix. Full classification below. With the Mathershaw cars hoping to charge through the field from the back, and an excellent chance for some teams in the upper midfield to score some big points, tomorrow is set to be a thriller. We hope you're as excited as we are, and look forward to bringing you the live coverage of all the action!
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