Rockingham BF3: Norris leads Carlin 1-2 in qualifying

The British driver clocked a 1m12.577s, leading a Carlin 1-2, as the front-row starters were the only duo within the field to dip into the 1m12s.

The times were significantly quicker than practice on Friday, where the field were lapping in the low 1m13s.

Brazilian Matheus Leist, who took pole in last round at Brands Hatch, had to settle for third with Thomas Randle fourth and Aleksanteri Huovinen completing the top five.

A last-gasp lap from Carlin’s Ameya Vaidyanthan saw him jump to sixth.

Enaam Ahmed finished seventh as HHC Motorsport’s Ben Hingeley improved to eighth, demoting Fortec’s Tarun Reddy to ninth on his last lap, while Jan Jonck rounded off the top 10.

The top seven drivers finished within a second of the polesitter as championship leader Toby Sowery only managed the 14th-fastest time, 1.306s off Norris' time.

A fairly incident-free session saw a brief red flag stoppage with just over 10 minutes remaining on the clock, when Chris Dittmann Racing’s Krishnaraaj Mahadik stopped on the exit of Pif Paf corner.

Qualifying results:

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Delay
1	Lando Norris	Carlin	1'12.577
2	Ricky Collard	Carlin	1'12.986	0.409
3	Matheus Leist	Double R Racing	1'13.056	0.479
4	Tom Randle	Douglas Motorsport	1'13.061	0.484
5	Aleksanteri Huovinen	Double R Racing	1'13.356	0.779
6	Ameya Vaidyanathan	Carlin	1'13.379	0.802
7	Enaam Ahmed	Douglas Motorsport	1'13.470	0.893
8	Ben Hingeley	HHC Motorsport	1'13.621	1.044
9	Tarun Reddy	Fortec Motorsports	1'13.628	1.051
10	Jan Jonck	Sean Walkinshaw Racing	1'13.736	1.159
11	Enzo Bortoleto	Double R Racing	1'13.737	1.160
12	Quinlan Lall	Chris Dittmann Racing	1'13.743	1.166
13	Thomas Maxwell	Sean Walkinshaw Racing	1'13.786	1.209
14	Toby Sowery	Lanan Racing	1'13.885	1.308
15	Eugene Denyssen	Sean Walkinshaw Racing	1'13.887	1.310
16	Faisal Al Zubair	Fortec Motorsports	1'14.024	1.447
17	Akhil Rabindra	Lanan Racing	1'14.219	1.642
18	Jeremy Wahome	Chris Dittmann Racing	1'14.309	1.732
19	Sisa Ngebulana	HHC Motorsport	1'14.321	1.744
20	Krishnaraaj Mahadik	Chris Dittmann Racing	1'14.361	1.784