Lewis Brown has taken his maiden Ginetta Junior Championship pole position by just eight thousandths of a second in a frenetic final few minutes of qualifying at Donington Park.
As track conditions improved following morning snowfall, the times started to tumble, with early timesheet topper Max Bird getting usurped as the clock ticked down.
Bird impressed to be top of the timesheets for a large portion of the session, the Total Control Racing rookie being the first driver to break the 1m 27s barrier.
The late improvements dropped him to seventh in the end however, with Brown storming to the top with a 1m 26.387s effort – with championship leader Stuart Middleton just behind.
Incredibly, a tenth of a second separated the top four runners, with Dave Wooder lining up third ahead of the top rookie on the grid, reigning Scholarship winner Dan Harper.
Seb Priaulx and Will Tregurtha completed the top six ahead of Bird, with Kyle Hornby, Tom Gamble and Geri Nicosia rounding out a top ten split by just six tenths of a second.
Cameron Roberts briefly jumped towards the top of the times, but was left to settle for eleventh. It was a similar story for Seb Perez, who couldn’t improve late on and dropped to thirteenth.
The qualifying results will set the grid for the opening race of the day, with the series running three races this weekend for the first time this season.
