Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Second Spa pole for dominant Turvey

Second Spa pole for dominant Turvey

Oliver Turvey continued his domination of this weekend's British Formula 3 round at Spa-Francorchamps by taking his second pole position by almost half a second.

Turvey and the rest of his Carlin Motorsport teammates sat in the pits for the first 10 minutes of the session, but when they hit the track Brendon Hartley, Sam Abay, and Turvey each held provisional pole.

But Turvey has topped every session so far and increased his gap over the rest to nearly half a second.

A yellow flag, caused by John Martin crashing in the Rivage section just after Turvey set his pole time, prevented anyone else from improving.

"I feel a lot happier about my performance today," he said. "Yesterday I got pole but I didn't get the perfect lap together. Today, I did two laps good enough for pole.

"We're on pole by quite a big margin, which is fantastic around such a difficult circuit. It's a real driver's track and I just love it out there. Hopefully we can convert the poles into wins."

Marcus Ericsson put his Fortec Motorsport car alongside Turvey on the front row, with Abay and Hartley filling row two for Carlin.

Abay was delighted with his best qualifying performance of the season after earning two second-row spots for this weekend's races.

"Spa is very high speed, very fast and flowing, and I think that suits my driving style quite well," he said. "It was a bit unfortunate that there was a yellow flag at the end because I could have gone a little quicker, although it wouldn't have been enough to catch Turvey, he's very quick around here."

Nick Tandy was fifth in JTR's Mygale with championship leaders Sergio Perez and Jaime Alguersuari sixth and seventh. Double R pair Atte Mustonen and John Martin qualified eighth and ninth, with guest driver Daniel Campos-Hull tenth.

Just two tenths of a second covered the top three cars in the National Class as Jay Bridger edged out Steven Guerrero and Stefan Wilson.

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap 1. Oliver Turvey Carlin D/M 2:14.101 2. Marcus Ericsson Fortec D/M 2:14.562 +0.461 3. Sam Abay Carlin D/M 2:14.599 +0.498 4. Brendon Hartley Carlin D/M 2:14.690 +0.589 5. Nick Tandy JTR M/M 2:14.932 +0.831 6. Sergio Perez T-Sport D/H 2:14.955 +0.854 7. Jaime Alguersuari Carlin D/M 2:14.955 +0.854 8. Atte Mustonen Double R D/M 2:15.125 +1.024 9. John Martin Double R D/M 2:15.293 +1.192 10. Daniel Campos-Hull HBR D/M 2:15.307 +1.206 11. Walter Grubmuller Hitech D/M 2:15.355 +1.254 12. Henry Arundel Double R D/M 2:15.737 +1.636 13. Michael Devaney Ultimate M/M 2:15.750 +1.649 14. Sebastian Hohenthal Fortec D/M 2:15.920 +1.819 15. Phillip Major Fortec D/M 2:15.961 +1.860 16. Max Chilton Hitech D/M 2:16.168 +2.067 17. Alastair Jackson Ultimate M/M 2:16.369 +2.268 18. Oliver Oakes Eurotek D/M 2:16.426 +2.325 19. Jay Bridger Fluid (N) D/H 2:16.555 +2.454 20. Steven Guerrero T-Sport (N) D/H 2:16.646 +2.545 21. Stefan Wilson Fluid (N) D/H 2:16.713 +2.612 22. Ricardo Teixeira Ultimate M/M 2:17.316 +3.215 23. Salman Al-Khalifa T-Sport (N) D/H 2:17.447 +3.346 24. Basil Shaaban HBR D/M 2:17.765 +3.664 25. Hywel Lloyd CF (N) D/H 2:17.772 +3.671 26. Kristjan Einar Carlin (N) D/H 2:18.696 +4.595 27. Craig Reiff Nexa (N) D/H 2:20.036 +5.935

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