Mawson clinches pole

Despite a qualifying session that was perturbed by yellow flags for more than half the duration Australian Joseph Mawson put on a great performance. He finished the session with the first and second-fastest times giving him pole position for races 1 and 3. He was followed by the championship leader Lasse Sorensen from Denmark and Mexican Patricio O’Ward.

Under cloudy skies on the Jerez circuit the 22 Auto Sport Academy trainees took to the track for their second-last qualifying session of the year. Valentin Hasse Clot was the first to set a benchmark time followed by Dorian Boccolacci and Swiss Paul Hokfelt Jr. After only one lap Anouck Abadie, the only woman driver in the championship, went off bringing her session to a premature halt. Race control ordered a full yellow while her car was being recovered so the drivers were unable to improve. Just after the session restarted Swede Reuben Kressner caused another interruption because of a mechanical incident. The result was another full yellow preventing the drivers from going pedal to the metal. Time was flying and only half the session remained for them to really go for it. Restart and red flag after Russian Vladimir Atoev crashed. The drivers funnelled into the pit lane awaiting the green light to rejoin the track.

When qualifying did restart they had only 12 minutes to put in their flying laps. Straight away O’Ward went to the top of the time sheets in front of Sorensen and Mawson. Frenchmen Valentin Moineault and Boccolacci followed the leading trio.

With five minutes to go, Sorensen set the fastest lap pushing O’Ward back to second place in front of Mawson. The three drivers swapped positions, but at the very end of the session the Australian pipped his two rivals and clinched pole from Sorensen and O’Ward. Moineault and Boccolacci hung on to fourth and fifth followed by Niclas Nylund from Finland and Swiss-Albanian Gjergj Haxhiu who took to the Spanish circuit like a duck to water! Rounding out the top 10 were Russian Denis Bulatov, David Droux from Switzerland and Anglo-Swiss Félix Hirsiger.

Mawson set the first and second-quickest times and will start race 1 from pole followed by O’Ward and Sorensen.

Reminder: the grid for race 1 is fixed according to each drive’s second-quickest time in qualifying. The grid for race 2 is fixed according to the finishing order of race 1 with the first 10 positions reversed. For race 3 the drivers line up according to their fastest times in qualifying.

Race 1: Saturday 18th October at 16h45.

Info Auto Sport Academy / © Photo KSP