Oliver Jarvis, the rookie of the year in the British Formula Three Championship last year, stormed to provisional pole position in the dying seconds of an incident-filled qualifying session in the Polytec Formula Three Macau Grand Prix yesterday.
Jarvis, 23, drives for Team Reckless Tom's, but he stayed cool even at the end of a stop-start qualifying session which was red-flagged three times due to crashes. He refused to be flustered and steered his way through traffic to clinch pole position for today's 10-lap qualification race with a time of two minutes, 11.696 seconds.
'I was concerned that there were so many red flags. Not only was that frustrating, but the traffic was also heavy and it was difficult to find gaps. Fortunately, I timed my last lap right and it paid off,' he said.
In second place on the grid will be reigning British Formula Three champion and Hitech Racing's Marko Asmer, of Estonia, who is strongly tipped to win the race. Japan's Kodai Tsukakoshi, driving for Manor Motorsport, grabbed third spot while Switzerland's Sebastien Buemi will start in fourth place.
To make the event more interesting, organisers changed the format of the showpiece race a couple of years ago. In previous years they had two separate 15-lap races with the aggregate time deciding the winner, now there is a qualification race today - which will decide the grid for tomorrow's 15-lap finale.
'The most important thing is to finish the qualification race tomorrow,' said Buemi. 'If you don't finish it, there is absolutely no chance at all of winning on Sunday. You will have to compromise between pushing hard and finishing the race.'
