Linus demonstrated serious inherent potential in qualifying for the first race of the weekend at Portland, storming to a front row slot despite two costly off-track excursions…
After topping the times in preceding testing earlier on Friday, Linus reaffirmed his pace with another frontrunning performance in Qualifying 1, only narrowly beaten to pole by 0.08 seconds by championship leader David Malukas.
Despite sealing a place on the front row, however, Linus was left largely frustrated after the session – feeling the potential was there for a lot more after slipping off the track on both of his new-tyre runs.
“Ah… that’s really disappointing to be brutally honest. There was so much more in it today. We were flying out there, but unfortunately I slipped up. I went off on both my runs, first at Turn 12 and then at Turn 7, and that ruined the build-up to my quick laps. I have to apologize to the guys because that – and I don’t say this often – should have been an easy pole today.”
Qualifying still marked a significant success for the whole Global Racing Group with HMD Motorsports operation, which locked out the front two rows with all four of its cars at the head of the classification.
“What a fantastic effort by the team. It’s amazing to have all four cars up there, and it just goes to show how quick we were today. Hopefully we can maintain this kind of performance going into tomorrow, and hopefully I can keep it on the black stuff then and get us to the front.”
After a busy day of action, encompassing four sessions and nearly five hours of track time, running resumes at Portland on Saturday with second qualifying and the first race of the weekend.
All remaining sessions this weekend will be live streamed, with the feeds accessible from the start page.
