Lanan Racing’s George Russell has set pole position for the BRDC Formula 4 Championship at Snetterton in a qualifying session which saw the Briton battling with HHC Motorsport’s Will Palmer for the top spot. The final margin between the two championship contenders, Russell heads the points table while Palmer holds fifth in his debut year of single seater racing, was just four thousandths of a second.
It was Palmer who struck first, by a lap, to head the timing screens at the mid-session point. His 1:50.125 put him six hundredths of a second clear of team mate Raoul Hyman. Russell responded though and popped in a time just quick enough to confirm his front row start.
Hyman held out for third with the best of the Sean Walkinshaw Racing entered drivers, Nicolas Beer in fourth place.
Arjun Maini grabbed fifth for Lanan ahead of the final HHC machine of Sennan Fielding. Struan Moore lost out to Gustavo Lima whose seventh place put him best of the Hillspeed runners but bettered the first of the MGR Motorsport run MSV F4-013s.
MGR’s reigning Protyre Formula Renault champion Chris Middlehurst took ninth place ahead of former MGR man, now racing with Douglas Motorsport, Diego Menchaca who rounded out the top ten. Petroball Racing’s Gaetano di Mauro grabbed eleventh place with Rahul Raj Mayer and Roderigo Fonseca splitting him from team mate Dan Roeper. Jordan Albert headed team mate Diego Borelli for SWR with Tom Jackson in the sole Chris Dittmann Racing entry in seventeenth.
David Wagner and Michael Claessens took eighteenth and nineteenth for MGR with the second Douglas car of Charlie Eastwood finishing in 20th and last place.
Late improvements were not to happen after the session was red flagged for a stranded car at the Bombhole.
