Alex Morgan got his 2014 season off to a perfect start with a pair of pole positions in qualifying for the opening rounds of the 2014 Courier Connections Renault UK Clio Cup at Brands Hatch, his first pole positions in the championship.
The KX Akademy/SV Racing driver, who TCF named our number one support driver to watch in 2014 earlier this week, posted his best time of 52.546 second with ten minutes left of the session.
Despite his rival’s best efforts, the time was good enough to give him pole for the opening race, with his second best time of 52.587s ensuring he will start race two from the front as well..
“The first set of tyres went perfectly, I got good space, and although it was troublesome on the second set I’m really happy to have double pole,” said Morgan. “I’m looking forward to getting stuck in during the races now – we’ve done the hard work.”
As is customary around the short Brands Hatch Indy circuit, the time were close at the field, with a mere 0.059 seconds covering the top three drivers.
Mike Bushell will line-up second on the grid for both the races for reigning champions Team Pyro, while three-time Clio Cup champion Paul Rivett secured a pair of third place starts on his first outing with WDE Motorsport.
“I’m absolutely over the moon with that. We had a gearbox issue at the end of the session we didn’t need, I think if it wasn’t for that I’m pretty sure we could have gone P1 as it’s so tight. I am so, so pleased with third though,” commented Rivett, who was comfortably the fastest of the Masters Cup runners.
Not far off his Pyro team-mate was Rob Smith, whose secured a career-best Clio qualifying performance with fourth on the grid for both races, bagging himself a pair of Graduate Cup class pole positions in the process.
SV Racing team-mates Ant Whorton-Eales and Josh Cook will share row three for both races, with Whorton-Eales ahead for race one, before they switch places for the live televised race two.
Fellow SV race Ash Hand, Lee Pattison and Westbourne Motorsport pairing James Colburn and Devon Modell will complete the top ten for race one, with them changing order for race two, Pattison starting seventh ahead of Colburn, Modell and Hand.
Full qualifying results can be found here: http://tsl-timing.com/toca/2014/141303cli.pdf
