EU V6: Donington qualifying report

Jani and Bell put on a show

Two superb qualifying sessions for round 6, with pole position changing hands non-stop ahead of two races that look more exciting than ever. At the front, Jani confirms his return to form, and Bell shows he's still in the title race.

Qualifying 1. It went down to the wire in the first timed session of the weekend, as Neel Jani took pole for Saturday's Grand Race right at the last minute, after a closely fought battle with his No.1 championship rival, Ryan Sharp (Jenzer Motorsport). This makes it four pole positions in a row for Jani, who has made the message clear: this is the man to catch in the race for the title. Another good piece of news is that Sharp is back among the leaders, as his team would seem to have straightened out the few problems with their car. Danielsson (SRTS) squeezed in at the top of the pack, qualifying ahead of Belicchi and Bell, two other contenders for the championship. But it was bad luck for Mondini, whose suspension problems saw him end the session in last place, and putting him at the back of the grid for Saturday's race.

Qualifying 2. What a battle! With the pole changing hands on every lap, Sharp (Jenzer Motorsport), Shimoda (David Price Racing) and Rojas (Telmex Dams) put up a tremendous fight, before the big guns of the series Bell (David Price) and Jani (Dams) joined in and moved right up to Sharp.

With four minutes left, Robert Bell pulled out all the stops to take pole ahead of Sharp and Jani, while Montanari (Victory Eng. SpA), a newcomer to FR V6, took a magnificent sixth place. Another excellent performance came from Rojas, who starts in fifth. Just 61/000ths of a second were all Bell needed to take pole and two more championship points. And with the front two rows in Sunday's Super Sprint taken up by Bell, Sharp, Jani and Belicchi all in the top five overall the championship is hotting up even more.

<pre> Qualifying 1 1) Jani 1'25''115 2) Sharp 1'25''179 3) Danielsson 1'25''480 4) Belicchi 1'25''689 5) Bell 1'25''713 6) Rojas 1'25''721 7) Campaniço 1'25''786 8) Barth 1'26''065 9) Proetto 1'26''183 10) Pasini 1'26''196

Qualifying 2 1) Bell 1'24''462 2) Sharp 1'24''468 3) Belicchi 1'24''739 4) Jani 1'24''749 5) Rojas 1'24''910 6) Montanari 1'24''936 7) Shimoda 1'25''068 8) Danielsson 1'25''114 9) Camaniço 1'25''146 10) Mondini 1'25''257

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