Fortec Motorsport’s Johnathan Hoggard took pole position for British F3’s Saturday race during an extremely competitive morning qualifying session at Donington Park.
In a session that saw pole position change hands lap-by-lap for the first three-quarters of the session, Hoggard eventually rose to see off the challenges of Clement Novalak, Ulysse De Pauw and Ayrton Simmons to name just three.
Seven tenths of a second cover the top fourteen drivers to tease a mouth-watering opening race of the weekend.
Hoggard’s pole lap was initially four tenths clear of the rest of the field, but by the end of the session Kaylen Frederick, another man to have turns on provisional pole, managed to get within just 0.062s.
Here's @j_hoggard33 on his pole position for Race One at Donington Park @FortecM @BRDCBritishF3 #BritishF3 pic.twitter.com/0UsPz2cyqk
— Jack Prentice (@JPrentice8) June 22, 2019
Simmons will line up third for Chris Dittman Racing ahead of championship leader Novalak, with De Pauw fifth for one of his strongest qualifying showings of the season.
Sassakorn Chaimongkol will line up sixth after an impressive session for the Thai driver, just three tenths off teammate Hoggard, with Manuel Maldonado seventh.
Kiern Jewiss rescued eighth from a difficult session that saw him spend most of his time towards the rear of the field as a track position became an issue for last year’s British F4 champion, while Neil Verhagen will be frustrated with ninth in the leading Double R Racing car.
Benjamin Pedersen completes the top ten, while Hampus Ericsson lines up 11th as Double R lock-out the sixth row with Pavan Ravishankar 12th.
Nazim Azman and Lucas Petersson in thirteenth and fourteenth are the final two cars within a second of polesitter Hoggard, with Kris Wright and Josh Mason bringing up the rear in fifteenth and sixteenth.
IMAGE: Jakob Ebrey (JEP)
Video @JPrentice8 on Twitter