Sonny Smith claims his maiden pole position for the opening round of the 2022 Ginetta Junior championship.
The rookie racer topped the times late in the session with a 1m23.950s lap time around the Donington Park circuit, and was the only driver to set a time sub 1m24s.
A new qualifying format has been introduced for the 2022 season, with an aim to stop drivers within a team from slip streaming one another.
Cars are sent out one at a time with intervals of a few seconds, and get only three flying laps.
The order in which the drivers went on circuit was randomly selected.
Harri Reynolds was one of the first out and set the pace in the first sector before an incident for James Wyres brought out the red flag before he could complete the lap.
When the session resumed with 12 minutes on the clock, Reynolds set the fastest time after the opening laps with a 1m24.88s.
Joe Warhurst managed second quickest, less than 0.1s behind Reynolds with Smith P3.
The drivers at the sharp end of the field improved with their final laps of the session.
Reynolds lowered the benchmark at the top of the order before Smith managed a time 0.268s faster.
Josh Rowledge took third quickest ahead of Joe Warhurst and Luke Watts.
William Macintyre lead Elite Motorsport team-mate Kanto Le.
Aqil Alibhai, Maurice Henry, and Ian Aguilera completed the top 10.
Second fastest lap times set the grid for the second race of the weekend. There, Reynolds will start on pole ahead of Warhurst, Smith and Watts.
Image credit: Ginetta/Jakob Ebrey Photography
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