The F4 U.S. Championship broke another record this year with the most rookies entered for the 2020 season- 24 of the 33 drivers are new to the series. But it was veteran F4 driver Bogle who wheeled his way to the top in the final five minutes of the 20-minute session.
Crosslink/Kiwi Motorsport driver Jose Blanco of San Juan, Puerto Rico, dominated the standings for a majority of qualifying, laying down times more than a second ahead of his closest competition. A brief red flag from a stalled car stranded on course clustered the field back together and Blanco fell down the order as other drivers improved around the 2.4-mile, 16-turn road course.
For more than half the session, Bogle’s times were outside the top-10, until in the final minutes he ripped off consecutive flyers with his fastest lap being the last circuit (1:27.183-seconds) to claim pole position.
“I got a little worried at the beginning of the session,” Bogle said. “About 10 minutes in we were setting at P22, but we were able to get out in the last five minutes and get some work done, bouncing right back up to the top where we left off last season (Bogle swept the U.S. GP weekend).”
At 15-years-old, Hunter Yeany of Virginia Beach, Virginia, has spent the last two years training and developing his race craft in an F4 U.S. car with Velocity Racing Development. With his coach F4 U.S. and FR Americas champion Dakota Dickerson in his ear, Yeany mastered the technical road course in qualifying.
While the position is a great first career start, Yeany will be driving with a target on his back. Yeany will be surrounded by JHDD drivers with Bogle to his side on pole, and Nolan Siegel of Palo Alto, California, Sam Paley of Villa Hills, Kentucky, and Bijoy Garg of Atherton, California, directly behind him.
“It feels great to start my first F4 U.S. race on the front row,” Yeany said. “The VRD team put together a great car and we went out there and got the job done.”
Crosslink/Kiwi Motorsport rookie Spike Kohlbecker, early pacesetter Blanco, Nick Persing (JHDD), Varun Choksey (Crosslink/Kiwi) and Dylan Tavella (Crosslink/Kiwi) completed the top 10.
F4 U.S. Results: https://www.f4uschampionship.com/pages/2020-results
Starting Saturday, the races will be live streamed by Formula Americas Network on FANRacing.Live. Live coverage begins 20 minutes prior to the start of the race.
FR Americas opens the day with its first of two races of the weekend at 9:40 am. Eastern, followed by F4 U.S. at 11:40 am Eastern. The weekend closes with F4 U.S. last race starting at 3:50 pm.
For more information visit, F4USChampionship.com.