Lloveras Takes Second Pole of the Season

The second round of the 2017 SMP F4 NEZ season started with sunny weather at the Smolensk Ring. After almost all the sessions in Sochi were run in rainy conditions, the drivers were happy to see rain staying away from Smolensk.

 

Free Practice 1

Bent Viscaal, MP Motorsport: “After a really bad day on Wednesday I got myself back together. I improved on few corners and was really fast even in the older set of tires.”

Dutchman Bent Viscaal went fastest in Free Practice 1 setting a lap time of 1:27.954. Lappalainen Racing’s Juuso Puhakka was only 0.073 seconds slower than Viscaal. Renault Academy driver and current Championship leader Christian Lundgaard took P3, losing 0.086 to his teammate. All in all FP1 was very tight with half the field getting within one second of the fastest lap time. Elias Niskanen had a difficult session after the problems that hampered his testing on Wednesday left the Finn at the bottom of the timesheets.

 

Free Practice 2

Christian Lundgaard, MP Motorsport: “At the beginning of the session we couldn’t start the engine but after I got going, the pace was really good.”

Rain washed the circuit between practice sessions but it was fortunately a dry track for FP2, which saw Lundgaard at the top of the list with a time of 1:26.586. The Dane beat Puhakka by 0.083, the latter continuing his impressive driving. Alexander Smolyar from SMP Racing took P3 with a gap of 0.240 to Lundgaard. Niskanen experienced yet another problem and was limited to only two laps.

 

Qualifying 1

Juuso Puhakka, Lappalainen Racing: “After a difficult weekend in Sochi the car worked really well today. Of course pole would’ve been ideal but P2 isn’t too bad.”

For the first time this season qualifying was run in dry conditions and what a battle for pole position it was. Just as in Sochi, after not being at the front of the pack in either practice session, Xavier Lloveras grabbed the fastest time. He will start from pole position for Race 1 and Race 2. Puhakka drove a brilliant qualifying and will line up beside the Spaniard tomorrow. Smolyar took P3 in his home country, being 0.054 off Puhakka’s pace.

Championship leader Lundgaard ended the fifteen-minute session in P4 with a 0.512 gap to the leader. SMP Racing’s Nikita Volegov took P5 after an excellent lap that was just 0.076’ quicker than Tuomas Haapalainen, who will start from P6. Mike Belov and Vladimir Tziortzis from SMP Racing, Viscaal and Jan-Erik Meikup from ALM Motorsport completed the top 10. Austrian Lukas Dunner brought out the red flag in the very last seconds of qualifying, after he beached his MP Motorsport car in the gravel.

Tomorrow the action resumes with Qualifying 2 at 09.10, followed by the first race of the weekend at 11.55. The weather forecast suggests it should stay dry so Race 1 could be the first race of the season on the Hankook slick tyres!