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FV8 3.5 Mexico: Pietro Fittipaldi doubles up with pole for race two

Pietro Fittipaldi made it two Formula V8 3.5 pole positions in Mexico City as he topped qualifying for race two ahead of Egor Orudzhev and Alfonso Celis

Lotus driver Fittipaldi, who had his double Formula 1 world champion grandfather Emerson watching on, claimed his 10th pole of the season with a best time of 1m30.635s.

The 21-year-old had already seized first place on the grid for race one earlier in the day.

Orudzhev was the only other driver to set a time in the 1m30s bracket, and it looked like the SMP Racing driver had a chance of improving on his final run before a big slide entering the stadium section spoiled his lap.

The Russian driver therefore ended up 0.124s adrift of Fittipaldi's best time.

On the second row, Celis pleased the home fans that attended the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez with a third place start for Sunday's second race.

Behind him in fourth was Lotus' Rene Binder, who overcame the engine issues that blighted his first qualifying session to set a best time of 1m31.148s, which put him 0.513s slower than his team-mate.

Fifth and sixth went to Alex Palou and Diego Menchaca, as the pair were unable to match the pace of the cars ahead on a track that had benefitted from more rubber going down during the 90 minutes of running by the World Endurance Championship cars, which the V8 3.5 series is supporting in Mexico this weekend.

Matevos Isaakyan couldn't match the pace he showed in the first qualifying session and was more than one-second adrift of Fittipaldi's pole time, finishing in seventh place after having several off-track moments during the 30-minute session.

Joining him on the fourth row is Yu Kanamaru, who edged out Konstantin Tereshchenko for ninth by just 0.065s with just a few minutes of qualifying remaining.

Roy Nissany and Giuseppe Cipriani complete the grid.

Race two grid

Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1 Pietro Fittipaldi Lotus 1m30.635s - 13
2 Egor Orudzhev SMP Racing by AVF 1m30.759s 0.124s 13
3 Alfonso Celis Fortec Motorsports 1m31.067s 0.432s 14
4 Rene Binder Lotus 1m31.148s 0.513s 12
5 Alex Palou Teo Martin Motorsport 1m31.471s 0.836s 15
6 Diego Menchaca Fortec Motorsports 1m31.535s 0.900s 15
7 Matevos Isaakyan SMP Racing by AVF 1m31.745s 1.110s 14
8 Yu Kanamaru RP Motorsport 1m31.849s 1.214s 15
9 Konstantin Tereschenko Teo Martin Motorsport 1m31.914s 1.279s 13
10 Roy Nissany RP Motorsport 1m32.027s 1.392s 15
11 Giuseppe Cipriani Il Barone Rampante 1m33.435s 2.800s 13

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