Carl Breeze left it late to grab pole position away from Ginetta GT4 Supercup championship rival Charlie Robertson in Saturday’s qualifying session at Knockhill, one of the tightest in Supercup history.
The session was by far the most open and competitive of the season, with no less than eight cars separated by less than two tenths of a second by the time the flag flew to signal the end of qualifying.
Points leader Robertson looked to have grabbed the advantage in the final five minutes, only for nearest championship rival Breeze to snatch pole position from the HHC Motorsport driver in the final two minutes with a lap of 51.760s, ending Robertson’s run of five consecutive pole positions prior to the meeting.
The gap between the front row men was just 0.007s, Breeze closing the gap in the title race by a point with pole position to 45 points ahead of Saturday’s race.
“It was pretty close that was!” an elated Breeze told TCF afterwards. “The car feels good and we’ve got really good pace at the moment.
“It was so close, we timed it nicely with the rain coming in as well. I’ve closed another point on Charlie with that as well; I think we’ve got a great chance to win.”
The top eight cars were eventually covered by a mere 0.183s, Breeze’s United Autosports team-mate Luke Davenport the last of those in eighth spot.
Davenport echoed his team-mate’s views after the session, adding to TCF: “The car is really good, I’m very happy with it. We should really be higher than where we are but it was so tight.”
Third place went to Andrew Watson who had topped the times at the midway stage of the session, bumped first by Robertson and then Breeze off the front row.
The Douglas Motorsport driver will share row two with Will Burns, who also demoted Jamie Orton to fifth on the grid after the HHC Motorsport man had initially placed himself at the top of the time sheets.
David Pittard was one of those to fall foul to track limits at the spectacular Fife circuit, and will start sixth on the grid ahead of Century Motorsport‘s Tom Oliphant, who enters off the back of victory at Snetterton earlier this month.
Davenport ended eighth, while newcomer Rory Bryant and the returning Fergus Walkinshaw wrapped up the top 10 ahead of Dan Norris-Jones and Reece Somerfield.
