Simon Evans has taken the first the first Toyota 86 Castrol Pole Position of the season at Highlands Motorsport Park.
Evans took a second off his best time set in practice yesterday to set a 1.52.0 lap, putting him 0.2 seconds ahead of Justin Allen, who topped the Friday practice sessions, will start alongside him on the front row of the grid, for this afternoons race.
“Everyone was sort of up and down yesterday in testing so we didn’t really know where we were in relation to the others, but it was a very good lap and myself and the team are pretty pleased to go under the 1 minute 53 second mark,” Evans said after the session.
“I’m pretty happy starting the race from pole position of course and really the focus will be to make a good clean start and to try and control the race from there.”
Allen set the early quick time, with a 1.53.1 lap, better than any lap from the Friday sessions, before Evans set his fast lap, which would remain unbeaten through the session.
Evans and Allen were leading the field by four-tenths at the halfway point in the session, with Clay Osborne sitting in third with a 1.53.5 as the session drew to a close.
Rookie Dion Pitt set a late time with a 1.53.4 to move into third, as the top rookie in the session, taking third on the grid from Osborne.
Marco Giltrap founded out the top five, North Island Formula Ford champ Matthew McCutcheon ended the session sixth fastest, ahead of Hugo Allan dropping to seventh after fighting to top yesterday’s practice sessions.
Todd Prujean finished the session in eighth, while Brock Gilchrist took ninth with Zac Stichbury rounding out the top ten, reigning champion Rowan Shepherd will start the first race of the weekend from 11th.
Main image: Bruce Jenkins
