Sweden’s John Bryant-Meinser took pole position for the opening race of the 2013 Cooper Tires British F3 International Series at Silverstone, the non-scoring German F3 invitational driver beating Jordan King to pole position.
The Performance Racing Europe driver – competing as an invitational entry in his German F3 Dallara F310-003 machine – blitzed the regular British F3 opposition with two rapid efforts that were enough for pole position, the Swedish driver eventually taking pole position with a lap of 1m53.882s to earn him pole for the weekend’s third race on Sunday, the only man to dip into the 1m53s margain.
Not only was his quickest lap a full 0.8s quicker than Carlin‘s King in second place, but he also claimed pole for the weekend’s opening race on Saturday afternoon ahead of King once again, the grid for race one being determined on second-fastest times from qualifying.
Behind the lead duo, Fortec Motorsport‘s Will Buller was eventually best of the rest following a flurry of late changes in the final order during the last four minutes of the half-hour session, Carlin drivers Nicholas Latifi and Jann Mardenborough dropping back having briefly held second and fourth respectively early in the session.
the duo were bumped down outside the top five in the final moments, Double R‘s Sean Gelael jumping up the timesheets to fourth thanks to a great late effort from the 16-year-old Indonesian, while Fortec’s Felix Serralles also improved to fifth having languished down in eighth for much of the session.
Former British GT race winner Mardenborough tailed row three in sixth place ahead of team-mate Latifi who fell to seventh, although the Canadian’s second-best time would be enough to see him claim third on the grid for the weekend’s first race ahead of Serralles, Mardenborough, Buller and Felipe Guimaraes.
In the National class, West-Tec‘s Ed Jones was the class of the field, the European F3 Open winner from Portimao comfortably ahead of his nearest rival Chris Vlok, the New Zealander moving up to second in class despite finishing just over a second behind Jones, Roberto La Rocca and Sun Zheng their nearest rivals.
Britain’s Alice Powell had no opposition to compete against in her own class, but she still managed to beat three National class rivals in her Mark Bailey Racing Dallara F307-Toyota, the car she regularly now races in the MSV-run F3 Cup.
