The opening race of the weekend at Oulton Park will feature a Carlin front row lock out following a fantastic qualifying session in the British Formula Four Championship in which Devlin DeFrancesco set a storming time to pole position. The Canadian, who had been one of the drivers to beat in official testing earlier in the week, left it until the flag fell to clinch his position at the top of the time sheets. Having looked strong throughout the entirety of the session and testing yesterday, Petru Florescu joins his team mate on the front row of the grid ahead of the race later this afternoon. Max Fewtrell and James Pull were also nicely on pace and will start race one this afternoon from fifth and sixth respectively.

As the 20 minute qualifying session got underway it was soon clear that it was to be an intense fight for pole position with both Pull and Florescu immediately getting quickly up to speed as they traded purple sectors in their efforts to take first blood. However the bar continued to be lowered in the opening ten minutes with multiple drivers in the competitive field leaping to the top of the times.

Florescu, who had been the pace setter in testing yesterday, soon began his assault; provisionally moving in to pole position he had his Carlin car in the perfect place. However DeFrancesco joined the battle and had soon knocked his team mate down to second while Pull and Fewtrell ensured they locked out the top four positions for Carlin with just over nine minutes to go.

The times at the top constantly changed over the next few laps as the fight for pole intensified. Florescu, Alex Quinn and Jamie Caroline all moved their Ford powered Formula 4 cars in to strong positions however in the dying seconds it became clear that DeFrancesco was the driver on the best lap so far.

As purple sectors began to appear on the timing screens, DeFrancesco was making his intentions for the weekend very clear. The times kept coming and the Canadian racer crossed the line just moments before the chequered flag and fantastically moved to the very top with an impressive lap time of 1:22.612.

Carlin’s speed was further cemented by the appearance of Florescu who brilliantly set the second quickest time to line up alongside DeFrancesco on the front row of the grid – ensuring a Carlin front row lock out. Meanwhile Fewtrell and Pull were once again well on pace and locked out the third row of the grid setting the fifth and sixth fastest times respectively.

DeFrancesco said of his pole position, “That was one last lap banzai for sure! As we went out, I knew we had a really good strategy and that this session was about building up. We worked on a few things during testing yesterday so I knew that we should be able to get it all hooked up and get it working well. I was aware that the lap was going to be my very last so I gave it everything and it was a great lap for pole position. My starts are pretty good so the plan is to focus on that, get away well and try and control the race from there. I’m looking forward to it!”

Lining up alongside him, Florescu said, “I had a strong qualifying session and I’m very happy to be ahead of the current championship contenders – that’s important for me. Congratulations to Devlin on his pole position but now it’s my turn to bring the battle to the first race. Many thanks to the team for the very quick car!”

The opening race of the weekend will get underway at 14.45 this afternoon.