Friday, 5 September, IBIZA: Two contrasting but tightly contested qualifying sessions saw France’s Jeremy Perez and America’s Chris MacClugage grab the advantage over their rivals and will start heat 1 of the Mediterranean Grand Prix from Pole Position.
Runabout’s Championship leader Perez carried the form that gave him the win-double and GP title in Italy into the first 15 minute session, topping the time sheets in practice and easing through Q1 in third place behind Teddy Pons and Cyrille Lemoine to set himself up to go for the Pole in Q2.
The 27-year-old from Lambesc then immediately seized the advantage with a time of 1:14.72s on his first flying lap around the 22-pin, 1.7km circuit off Playa D’en Bossa to grab his first Pole of the season.
Pons, who sits in second place in the points table just three behind Perez, topped the time sheets in Q1 but was unable to find the pace to steal past his countryman, missing out by just three-tenths of a second. Italy’s Mattia Fracasso improved his performance in the final session to go third quickest, but was three seconds adrift of the top two.
World Champion Yousef Al Abdulrazzaq, back on the tour after missing the last race through injury, first had to get through pre-qualifying to reduce the overall number of riders to 25, which he did comfortably, but was missing the pace of his number one race bike managing fourth in both Q1 and Q2.
Ski qualifying produced yet another intriguing duel between MacClugage and Jeremy Poret, the two rivals trading times and swapping places throughout, the American getting the upper hand in the first session ahead of Portugal’s Tiago Sousa, with Poret in third.
In the final ten minute session, the two went head-to-head from the green flag; Poret led MacClugage round for the first flying lap but it was the American who grabbed the provisional pole with a time of 1:22.08s. Poret then hit back to go quicker posting his best, 1:20.99 which looked to be enough, but the determined MacClugage then stole the Pole on his last run as the clock counted down, with a 1:20.18.
Nacho Armillas was by far the strongest of the Spanish riders, matching his best qualifying off the year going third fastest ahead of an impressive outing by Morgan Poret with Sousa in fifth.
Estelle Poret was the best of the Ladies finishing in 15th spot out of a starting line-up of 24, ahead of Championship leader Jennifer Menard, with Marta Sorrerntino in 21st spot ahead of Spain’s Sandra Fernandez.
Qualifying – Runabout:
1. J Perez (fra) - 1:14.72s
2. T Pons (fra) - 1:15.05s
3. M Fracasso (ita) - 1.18.15
4. Y Al Abdulrazzaq - 1:18.27s
5. C Lemoine (fra) - 1.18.28s
Qualifying – Ski:
1. C MacClugage (usa) - 1:20.18s
2. J Poret (fra) - 1:20.99s
3. N Armillas (esp) - 1:23.94s
4. M Poret (fra) - 1:24.48s
5. T Sousa (por) - 1: 25.17s