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Aragon Formula V8 3.5: Pietro Fittipaldi takes opening race pole

Pietro Fittipaldi boosted his championship bid by taking pole for the Formula V8 3.5 opening race at Aragon, as points leader Rene Binder finished seventh after two fast laps were deleted

Fittipaldi set the early pace with a 1m41.363s benchmark, while the rest of the field struggled to keep up with the Brazilian.

Binder had his initial quick time deleted after exceeding track limits at Turn 9, where drivers were trying to make up time by cutting the inside of the tricky downhill corner.

RP Motorsport driver Roy Nissany went second behind Fittipaldi, 0.317 seconds off the pace, before the cars came back out of the pits for the final frantic minutes of the session in their final runs.

Nissany was pipped for second by Diego Menchaca, as Fittipaldi went even quicker up front, with a 1m 41.222s effort.

Pietro Fittipaldi set a faster lap of 1m 40.652s but this was removed by the stewards of the meeting as he stopped on his in-lap and did a practice start, which is prohibited.

AVF's Egor Orudzhev then took second briefly, only for Menchaca to regain the spot moments later.

But Binder struck back on the final lap, going second and initially sealing a front row start alongside Fittipaldi.

A Lotus one-two was then denied swiftly, with Binder's fastest lap removed for track limits at Turn 9 again - which put him down in seventh as Fittipaldi took his seventh pole of the season.

That meant that Orduzhev returned to second, demoting Menchaca to third ahead of Fortec driver and Force India reserve Alfonso Celis Jr.

RP Motorsport duo Yu Kanamaru and Nissany ended fifth and sixth ahead of Binder.

QUALIFYING ONE RESULT:

Pos Driver Team Time Gap
1 Pietro Fittipaldi Lotus 1m41.222s -
2 Egor Orudzhev SMP Racing by AVF 1m41.306s 0.084s
3 Diego Menchaca Fortec Motorsports 1m41.407s 0.185s
4 Alfonso Celis Fortec Motorsports 1m41.523s 0.301s
5 Yu Kanamaru RP Motorsport 1m41.565s 0.343s
6 Roy Nissany RP Motorsport 1m41.700s 0.478s
7 Rene Binder Lotus 1m41.704s 0.482s
8 Matevos Isaakyan SMP Racing by AVF 1m41.721s 0.499s
9 Damiano Fioravanti RP Motorsport 1m42.068s 0.846s
10 Konstantin Tereschenko Teo Martin Motorsport 1m42.369s 1.147s
11 Giuseppe Cipriani Il Barone Rampante 1m43.953s 2.731s


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