Enrique Ruiz has taken pole position for Franklin ahead of tomorrow's French V-Prix at Magny Cours, besting the Downton duo by just five hundredths of a second. Less than a tenth separated the top three drivers, in a session which appeared to be heading for another Downton front row lockout, before the Brazilian's final run saw him leap ahead of the pair at the flag. Q1 In the first Q1 session determined by current championship order, Ocelot seemed eager to set the benchmark, both Puccio Giodano and Hunter Ryan heading to the pit lane exit over a minute before the track went green. The pair duly set the first representative times of the session, Giodano a tenth faster than his rookie teammate. However, as the track continued to evolve, times began to fall, with Nikolai Milkovich first to demote the Ocelot pair at the head of the timesheets, quickly followed by Finn Schnyder, and then Will Hoskins, who continued his impressive form for Andromeda. With pace improving, some drivers elected to wait until as late as possible to set their final times, one of whom was Finn Schnyder. The Swiss driver found himself in the middle of the queue heading into the final corners, but just over a minute later, he was at the top of the timesheets. There was disappointment, however, for Giodano, as he misjudged the gap to the cars ahead, and failed to cross the line before the chequered flag fell. As times improved for others, the Italian was left at the bottom of the pack and failed to qualify for tomorrow's race, along with Cheema's Carson Davenport, Marcus Thunder in the Lucas, and the AMR of Dmytro Kovalenko. Full Q1 classification can be seen below. Q2 The first few minutes of Q2 were curiously quiet, as no team wanted to head out first after how much track evolution had been seen in Q1. Eventually, Phoenix took to the track, swiftly followed by a raft of other teams, the Lopez of Viktor Ostberg almost coming together with the Meteor of Jules Simon on his way out of the garage. The top three teams chose to wait further, allowing the FIRST of Felix Pérez to head to the top of the timesheets almost unchallenged, while an impressive Felix Beyer took his Holmqvist to second, separating Pérez from his teammate, Oleksandr Zozulya. However, when Franklin, Downton and DS Mathershaw headed out of the pits, to raucous cheers from the crowd for the French outfit, they immediately went straight to the top positions. Klaas van Snelheid edged ahead of Nathaniel Powers with their first runs, as Downton continued to be an omnipresent threat for pole, as they have since the start of the season. During a mid-session lull, Will Hoskins put together a stunner of a lap to go fifth fastest for Andromeda, ahead of both Adrien Simon and Tumo Kinnumen. The lap caught many in the paddock by surprise, including the Brit himself. As Q2 reached its climax, the Downtons bettered their times further, and no other driver could match them. That is, until Ruiz started his lap, and despite not being the fastest in any sector, the Franklin driver put together the best lap of the session, for his first pole position of 2019. In their home race, DS Mathershaw could only qualify on the third row, also losing out to the FIRST of Pérez. The top ten were rounded out by Kinnumen, Beyer, the highly impressive Hoskins, and Zozulya. Ingram continued their impressive form from Silverstone, with Mattson and Vasquez only thousandths apart just outside the top ten, while North Star were left scratching their heads as their pace in the opening rounds appeared to desert them. Schnyder, fastest in Q1, could only manage twenty-third, with the grid being rounded out by the only Ocelot in the session, that of Hunter Ryan. Full Q2 classifications can be seen below, along with tyre selections for the grid on race day.
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