Chris Middlehurst continued his impressive start to the 2013 Protyre Formula Renault Championship with a dominant display in qualifying for Rounds Six, Seven and Eight at Thruxton.
The 18 year old currently leads the championship after taking three wins in the opening five races, and was once again the class of the field during the two 15 minute qualifying sessions around the high-speed Hampshire circuit.
The morning’s opening session saw Middlehurst’s best time of 1:12.823s give him pole for the opening encounter, with his second best time ensuring him pole for race two. The MGR Motorsport driver then repeated the trick in the second session after lunch, his quickest lap of 1:12.989s completing his lock out of top spots on the grid.
Joining him on the front-row for each of the fifteen lap races will be Jake Cook, the Hillspeed star narrowly missing out on pole for race two by just 0.002s, with his best time in second session being a mere 0.100s shy of Middlehurst’s pole lap.
Weiron Tan will line up third for the opening race, the Malaysian backing it up with fourth and fifth for the next two races, both of which will see Ivan Taranov start third, the Scorpio Motorsport ace making it a trio of top four starts.
Putting himself in the hunt for a first win of the season meanwhile is Joe Ghanem, the Lebanese racer taking three top six grid positions, including a best of fourth for race three.
Having a session to forget though was Snetteron race-winner Sam MacLeod, the Fortec Motorsport ace being only able to take sixteenth, fifteenth and nineteenth places for the three races.
Full qualifying results can be found here: http://tsl-timing.com/barc/2013/132223bfr.pdf