Neil McFadyen continued his unprecedented run of form by scoring pole position for both races that make up Sunday's third Kumho Tyres Australian F3 Championship outing at Oran Park, but the gap between the Piccola Scuderia Corse driver and his rivals again shrank with each session.
McFadyen did enough, however, to record two extra points towards his title campaign by topping Team BRM's Nathan Caratti in both sessions, winning pole by 0.2secs in the first and just 0.012secs in the second. Whilst pleased with the pole positions – and the points that come with them – McFadyen said that the day's efforts were as much about getting a good car for tomorrow as they were for getting fastest time.
“We're very happy with how were going, but we were really using this to just learn and to get the car right for the race,” McFadyen said, “We know that we have great pace and that we would qualify up there, but we were looking for something that would be a consistent base for tomorrow.
"We're very pleased – it's what we aim for and it's another two points towards the championship, which is what is so important in F3. Now we need to go out and do the job tomorrow. I can drive as comfortably as I like, push when I need to and back off when I need to, which is ideal.”
Caratti qualified second in both sessions to set himself up for a strong run after a difficult Clipsal 500 in February which dropped him from first in the championship to fourth.
Leanne Tander bounced back from her involvement in Friday's massive testing crash to record the third fastest time in qualifying one, and backed that up with fourth-best time in the second session. In third, Tander was just 0.2secs from pole in first qualifying after a typically close F3 session, but an equally strong performance came from F3 rookie Nick Percat, who qualified third for race two in the #4 No Fear/Walkinshaw Performance Team BRM Dallara.
![Neil McFadyen - Piccola Scuderia Corse [pic credit: RaceTorque/Klynsmith]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/431999.jpg)
