Fraga grabs last gasp pole position at Teretonga
Brazilian Igor Fraga grabbed a sensational pole position at Teretonga after the Castrol Toyota Racing Series qualifying session was reduced to a three minute dash following a nasty incident involving Giles Motorsport's Kiwi racer Chelsea Herbert.
Herbert left the pits to start the session and within metres of joining the track had gone off into the tyre wall on the right hand side of the straight. The session was stopped whilst the 21 year old was extricated from the car. She was taken to hospital for a check over complaining of back pain.
A long red flag left five minutes of the session for the 18 remaining drivers to make their mark. The ended up being just three minutes after Rui Andrade stopped out on the track prompting another red flag.
With the session stopped and any remaining time useless for bettering lap times, it was Igor Fraga for M2 Competition who topped the times to grab pole position.
Jackson Walls went second quickest at the track where he made his TRS debut in 2019 while Grégoire Saucy and Oliver Rasmussen popped up with last gasp laps to take third and fourth respectively. Unfortunately post qualifying investigation dropped Walls and Rasmussen down the field as they were stripped of their fastest lap times which were recorded under yellow flag conditions. This left Saucy with a front row starting slot.
Friday pace setters Franco Colapinto and Caio Collet grabbed third row starting slots in third and fourth while Germany's Lirim Zendeli and Israel's Ido Cohen line up fifth and sixth. Karting sensation Emilien Denner was quickly into his groove to grab seventh with Jose Blanco eighth for Kiwi Motorsport. The top ten was rounded out by Yuki Tsunoda and an impressive Henning Enqvist.
Reigning champion and series leader Liam Lawson was a disappointed 13th after his short run was affected by traffic.
Castrol Toyota Racing Series - Round 2 Teretonga Park - Qualifying 1
- Igor Fraga - M2 Competition
- Grégoire Saucy - Giles Motorsport
- Franco Colapinto - Kiwi Motorsport
- Caio Collet - mtec Motorsport
- Lirim Zendeli - Giles Motorsport
- Ido Cohen - M2 Competition
- Emilien Denner - M2 Competition
- Jose Blanco - Kiwi Motorsport
- Yuki Tsunoda - M2 Competition
- Henning Enqvist - Giles Motorsport
- Axel Gnos - Kiwi Motorsport
- Jackson Walls - mtec Motorsport
- Liam Lawson - M2 Competition
- Spike Kohlbecker - Kiwi Motorsport
- Oliver Rasmussen - mtec Motorsport
- Rui Andrade - M2 Competition
- Petr Ptacek - mtec Motorsport
- Lucas Petersson - mtec Motorsport
Not classified: Chelsea Herbert - Giles Motorsport
