Robbie Kerr has sensationally snatched pole position for his home A1GP sprint race at
Brands Hatch, ahead of latest series winner Jonathan Summerton in the ‘We The People' entry and champion-elect Neel Jani in the Swiss machine.
Whilst Jani and Irishman Adam Carroll looked happily relaxed ahead of qualifying, Great Britain's Kerr was deeper in concentration as he drove the perfect pole position lap in his mind – and it was a method of preparation that would clearly pay off.
Adam Khan was the first driver to take to the track in Q1, though a lock-up at Surtees would compromise the Pakistani's lap. Narain Karthikeyan was next and was quick with it, despite a couple of twitches, but with three-and-a-half minutes to go as many as 18 nations had still to set a lap time.
With just shy of two minutes remaining, the big-hitters finally showed their faces, with Kerr taking to the track on old tyres. Carroll was showing strong pace in the Irish entry, as he dipped below Karthikeyan's effort, but a ragged end to the lap saw the Ulsterman ultimately come up three tenths short.
Jeroen Bleekemolen moved up to third in the closing stages and Franck Montagny a more encouraging fifth, then Jani blew them all out of the water as a message of intent saw the Swiss ace leap to the top of the timesheets, just over a tenth clear of Kerr in second – the British ace, lest we forget, running on used rubber…
Karthikeyan wound up third, ahead of Filipe Albuquerque (Portugal), Summerton (USA), Carroll, Bleekemolen, Filip Salaquarda (Czech Republic), Adrian Zaugg (South Africa) and Michael Ammermuller (Germany), with Jonny Reid in the New Zealand machine – the only man who can prevent Jani and Switzerland from lifting the laurels this weekend – all the way down in 13th, and morning star CongFu Cheng a surprisingly lowly 17th.
In Q2 Karthikeyan was first out on the circuit, with seven minutes left to run, but a lap three tenths adrift of Jani's effort in Q1 did not bode well for the former
F1 star's hopes of retaining his provisional second row grid slot.
