Brazilian claims top spot for prestigious F3 event

source: autosport.com

Nelson Piquet Jr claimed pole position for the Marlboro Masters at Zandvoort, with a late flying lap that displaced F3 Euroseries leader Ryan Briscoe from the head of the timesheets.

Australian Briscoe looked to have easily secured pole, and chose not to take to the track in the final minutes of the session in order to conserve tyres for the race. This left Briscoe merely as a spectator as British series regular Piquet put in an absolutely storming lap, claiming pole with less than a minute to go in his session.

Under the unusual qualifying regulations for the race, each of the two qualifying sessions sort one side of the grid, so Briscoe was knocked back to third position for the race, with Christopher Klien starting second after topping the times in the second session. However, the Australian remains confident of a strong performance tomorrow because of his fresh tyres.

Nicolas Lapierre qualified fourth, ahead of Carlin's Jamie Green. Adam Carroll made it three British series runners in the top six. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the qualifying session was the struggles of British series championship leader Alan van der Merwe, who could line up only 10th. The South African felt that he went out too early on his new tyres.

Marlboro Masters Zandvoort starting grid
Pos Driver Time
1 Nelson Piquet Jr 1m33.114s
2 Christian Klien 1m33.294s
3 Ryan Briscoe 1m33.238s
4 Nicolas Lapierre 1m33.333s
5 Jamie Green 1m33.586s
6 Adam Carroll 1m33.436s
7 Markus Winkelhock 1m33.626s
8 Oliver Pla 1m33.456s
9 Ronnie Bremer 1m33.745s
10 Alan van der Merwe 1m33.574s