Noble Jnr, however, didn’t go unchallenged with American Ryan Booth jumping to the top of the timing screens in the new Valour Racing 2017 SR8 with six minutes remaining. The flying Scotsman was quick to respond with further improvements and his final time of 2:19.581 was good enough to secure the top spot by 1.034 seconds from Booth.
Barker’s best time of 2:25.332 sealed third overall and the UK Radical Challenge pole time, ahead of MI class runners Jeremy Ferguson and Jacques Villars. Jack Lang’s sixth overall secured Challenge class second while current Championship leader Steve Burgess took third in class. Scorpio Motorsport’s James Robinson clocked in as the fastest Team Challenge entrant, eighth overall.
Completing a double pole-position winning performance for the Radical Works Team SR8, John Harrison led the field from the Q2 session re-start, following a brief red flag stoppage to recover John Caudwell’s SR3 from Turn 13.
Barker and Lang showed strong pace early-on, running as high as second and third overall respectively, while a storming performance from Ivan Lukashevich jumped the AUH Motorsport car up the order to steal the UK Challenge and Team class pole position with four minutes remaining.
With lap times tumbling in the closing stages of the 20-minute session, Harrison continued to improve, eventually securing outright pole with a 2:20.411 from RAW Motorsport’s Andrew Ferguson and Philippe Paillot.
The incredibly close Challenge battle played out with 0.264 seconds covering Barker, Lang and reigning Champ Burgess and second to fourth in class for race two on Sunday.
Race action proper kicks off at the legendary Belgium circuit with the first of three one-hour battles scheduled for 14.15 (local time) with live streaming available via Radical TV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REvRMi59wYs
For complete Q1 results visit: http://www.cronococa.com/resultados2017/1392/radicalqualifying1.pdf
For full Q2 results visit: http://www.cronococa.com/resultados2017/1392/radicalqualifying2.pdf