Robert Shwartzman stormed to a third pole position of the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 Series season after setting the pace in qualifying for race one at the Nurburgring on Saturday morning.
With a season-high thirty-one cars racing this weekend, qualifying was split into two groups, and it was the R-ace GP driver who set the best time of the whole session in Group B, with his 1:54.750s denying Group A pacesetter and team-mate Max Defourny by 0.713 seconds.
Daniel Ticktum, who became the first rookie driver to take an outright victory in 2017 last time out at the Hungaroring, will start third, with the Red Bull-backed Arden Motorsport driver being joined on the second row by Josef Kaufmann Racing’s Sacha Fenestraz, with both drivers finishing second fastest in their respective groups.
Max Fewtrell will start fifth on the grid for Tech 1 Racing ahead of Yifei Ye of Josef Kaufmann Racing, while Gabriel Aubry of Tech 1 Racing, twice a winner at the Hungaroring two weeks ago, will share row four with AVF by Adrian Vallés’ Portuguese racer Henrique Chaves.
Australian racer Thomas Randle, also of AVF by Adrian Vallés, will start ninth, with current championship leader Will Palmer of R-ace GP completing the top ten. The Briton will need to have a good race however if he is to deny Shwartzman the advantage in the standings, with just five points separating the team-mates heading into race one.
The Eurocup competitors will have a second qualifying session on Saturday afternoon before taking to the track for race one towards the end of the day.
Nurburgring Race 1 Qualifying Result
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