Logan Sargeant became the seventh different pole sitter of the 2018 Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 Championship as he grabbed top spot in the first Qualifying session at Spa-Francorchamps on Thursday, which determined the grid for Saturday morning’s second race of the weekend.
Group A
Yifei Ye was quickest in the first session as the twenty-nine cars were split into two groups for the Qualifying session, with the current Eurocup championship leader setting the pace with a lap of 2:19.703s, 0.176 seconds clear of the impressive Oscar Piastri of Arden Motorsport, although the Australian lost an even quicker lap after exceeding track limits at turn nine.
Max Fewtrell ended third fastest for R-ace GP, 0.286 seconds off the best time of Ye, while Lorenzo Colombo of JD Motorsport and Richard Verschoor of Josef Kaufmann Racing, were fourth and fifth.
Jarno Opmeer, who came into the MP Motorsport squad last weekend at the Red Bull Ring after the departure of Max Defourny, was sixth ahead of R-ace GP’s Charles Milesi, while Arden’s Sami Taoufik and Nikita Volegov, and Tech 1 Racing’s Alexander Smolyar completed the top ten.
Group B
Sargeant was able to better Ye’s time by almost seven-tenths of a second, with the R-ace GP driver setting a best time of 2:19.046s, 0.061 seconds clear of MP Motorsport’s Christian Lundgaard.
Victor Martins, the most recent winner in Eurocup last weekend in Austria, was third fastest ahead of JD Motorsport’s Thomas Maxwell and Fortec Motorsport’s Arthur Rougier, with the top five being separated by just over four-tenths of a second.
Frank Bird was sixth fastest for Tech 1 Racing ahead of Eliseo Martinez of AVF by Adrian Valles and MP Motorsport’s Alex Peroni, while Fortec Motorsports’ Vladimir Tziortzis and Tech 1 Racing’s Neil Verhagen completed the top ten.
Race 2 Grid
Sargeant and Ye will therefore share the front row on Saturday morning, with the race taking place just before the Total 24 Hours of Spa, while Lundgaard and Piastri will share row two ahead of Martins, Fewtrell, Maxwell, Colombo, Rougier and Verschoor.
The full-time Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup entrants are also racing this weekend, and it will be Gabriel Gandulia of R-ace GP who will lead the quartet away from twenty-fifth on the grid ahead of Anders Motorsport’s Doureis Ghattas in twenty-seventh, ScoRace Team’s Sharon Scolari in twenty-eighth and Phil Hill of Anders Motorsport in twenty-ninth.
