Porsche Mathershaw’s Enrique Ruiz and carried his strong Friday Practice pace into Qualifying and claimed pole position for the Mexican V-Prix in dominant fashion. Q1 The morning qualifying session was somewhat of a foregone conclusion before the race weekend had even begun. With the Highwind team missing the strategy deadline and therefore automatically failing to qualify for the final grid; the only way that North Star and Arrow would fail to see both cars through would’ve taken a minor miracle from either of the Scuderia Meteor pair which, unsurprisingly, did not happen. However – despite their fate having been sealed – Highwind actually looked competitive, in the hands of Karl Beckenbauer at least. The German only needed two laps to set a time capable of third fastest, right behind the North Star of Brock Kidd and Yakumi Takahashi’s Arrow. Behind the top three, Halvosen was slightly off the pace, almost half a second off his American teammate, with Zander Brynildsen – thanking his lucky stars that Highwind missed the deadline – down in fifth. Nikolai Milkovich was a couple of tenths back, with Davenport and Beyer taking up their usual positions as the slowest pair. Q2 The main qualifying session began with very few of the usual front runners towards the top of the times, but it was Enrique Ruiz who set the pace and ultimately claimed a comfortable pole position with an absolutely scintillating lap, set early in the session. The Brazilian’s lap was, simply, a masterpiece and, as the camera panned to the pit walls of the other top teams, left many in the paddock in awe. Marcus Thunder looks set to continue Lucas’ fine form in second, albeit a whopping five and a half tenths off Ruiz. He has Klaas van Snelheid and Hunter Ryan in the Ocelot behind him, the Aussie driver benefitting from massive track improvement late on in the session to send the Japanese team into raptures. Sergio Alvarez and Thierry Xylander looked in fine form throughout the session, the track seemingly suiting the car. Phoenix put in their strongest team qualifying session in their history by securing fifth and sixth on the grid. James Vasquez was another driver, like Ruiz, whose mighty lap was set early on in the session and was ultimately good enough for a magnificent eighth on the grid. The Franklin pair round out the top ten, with Addison outqualifying Forini at a time when rumours are rife about who will be partnering the returning Will Hoskins – who starts directly behind them – next season. Brynildsen, in the same fashion as Ryan, got a late lap in to set a lap time good enough for twelfth, right in the middle of the FIRST pair. Whilst Klaas never troubled Ruiz for pole, Championship leader Nathaniel Powers had a dismal day, never looking close to troubling the top ten. The Brit was never comfortable with the setup of his car and ended the day in sixteenth, hundredths of a second ahead of Kidd’s North Star. The Lopez duo had a difficult day, struggling to a disappointing eighteenth and twentieth on the grid for tomorrow’s race, with Puccio Giodano between them; almost a second behind his young teammate. Maximilian Thunstrom, who took the win in superb fashion at the US V-Prix, could only manage 25th – ahead of only Johan Halvosen – after the Swede got baulked by traffic on his final push lap. The official classification can be found below:
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