Ruiz continued his fine form from earlier to put his car in pole position for tomorrow's race. Klaas van Snelheid was less than half a tenth back, while Simon put in a great lap to make it a 1-3 on the grid tomorrow for Coca-Cola Porsche Team Mathershaw. Pre-Qualifying In the newly renamed pre-qualifying session, it was home hero Yakumi Takahashi who set the pace today. With a tenth or two in hand over the other nine cars vying to qualify, he was clearly the cream of the crop. A further two tenths back was Zozulya putting in a good showing in his AMR, with the second Arrow of the new recruit that is Addison coming third in the session. Just under two tenths covered 2nd-6th in this session, with both Arrows and both AMRs making it through. However we saw our first upset of the season in pre-qualifying! Halvosen was on the cusp going into the dying seconds of the session, and everybody was on their final laps. Unfortunately, he rode the kerb too hard into turn three and had to save a massive oversteer moment. Despite this expert car control, he was no longer able to improve. This left an opportunity for the surprisingly fast Xylander, who was snapping at the heels of the top six all session, and with a late lap that left most people shocked, he put his Highwind onto the grid for tomorrow's race. Full pre-qualifying results below. Qualifying The track temperatures were lower than in practice earlier, which meant maintaining tyre temperature was more important, but the drivers were able to push harder once in the operating window. Once again we saw Downton and Porsche Mathershaw go hammer and tong all the way throughout the session - the laptimes tumbled as they one upped eachother time and again, with each of the four drivers once more finding their way to the top of the timesheet throughout the session. In the dying moments it was Simon who lead the way with a strong laptime, but as the flag fell he was pipped to the post by his teammate with an incredible performance. Klaas van Snelheid was able to squeeze his Downton onto the front row, ultimately relegating Simon to fourth while Zettici ended up a tenth off the pace of the top three, albeit still safely on row four. Powers, as ever, showed his immense quality by putting his car fifth on the grid and only just under three and a half tenths back from pole position. There were more standout performances as James Vasquez wrung the neck of his Ingram to the lofty heights of sixth place, splitting the Lucas cars. Kangur showed more of Phoenix's promise from practice and lines up on the fourth row. Giodano recovered well from his poor practice and just about squeezed into the top ten by a couple hundredths of a second. Arrow continued to impress, filling out the sixth row and at one point having both cars inside the top ten - showing serious pace all session. Meanwhile Taylor has left himself with it all to do tomorrow - he couldn't hook up a lap in his last run and goes from 13th. Brock Kidd will be carrying the pressure of being the only North Star on the grid tomorrow, but that didn't get to him today as he rocketed to 14th on the grid. Perez's FIRST looked handier today, as did the Lopez cars, all of which improving upon their positions from earlier's practice session. The two AMRs sandwiched Kinnumen in seventeenth and nineteenth, both teams arguably would've wanted more from that session but between tyre warming and traffic, it was a task to get a solid lap in in the midfield cars it seemed - Klien and Ryan both fell victim to this as well, and they will be starting well out of position. Franklin struggled even more in qualifying, perhaps implying that their new hybrid tech is struggling in the low temperature conditions, and may be better suited to warmer circuits; whatever the case, they line up in last and third from last. However, the star of pre-qualifying Thierry Xylander continued to impress. Fans and teams alike were entranced by the way he hustled the Highwind around the track, man locked in a furious tango with machine as he danced the car to twenty first on the grid. Highwind and Xylander will be over the moon with that result, and could be one to watch tomorrow in the race. With qualifying now over and the cars cooling down, we look forward to the race. Will Porsche strike first in this tight scrap at the front, can Downton come back from qualifying, and will Powers have anything to say about it? So many questions, and the answers will come to you live from trackside tomorrow. You don't want to miss this one! See full qualifying results below.
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