Ed Jones made his return from an injury suffered at Pau earlier in the season with the best possible result as he scored pole for both the first and third Cooper Tires British Formula Three International Series races at Spa-Francorchamps.
The UAE based driver was comfortably the fastest man in qualifying, his time of 2:14.638 more than eight tenths faster than Sean Gelael as the pair gave Carlin a front row lock out on a grid bolstered by several visiting drivers.
To secure second place Gelael had to keep at bay two more of the visiting drivers who share the third row of the grid with Double R’s Roberto Mehri ahead of John Bryant-Meisner in his older chassis run by Performance Racing.
Sam MacLoed was the best of the British F3 regulars, adding another accolade to strong session for the Carlin team. However, he had to wait until the second half of the session to set his lap of 2:16.136 that lifted him above points leader Martin Cao and Li Zhi Cong amongst the full season entrants. Of the three Cao had set the early pace, only to be pushed back by Carlin teammates Cong and MacLoed. Before the end of the session, however, he was able to prevent another Carlin one-two in the session, qualifying sixth overall.
Nabil Jeffri was seventh fastest overall ahead of Cong and his fellow British F3 regulars Andy Chang and Matt Rao, who completed the top ten on the 14 strong grid.
