Maxime Martin misses practice but puts it on pole in Pool Furious at Zolder

Romeo Ferraris driver Maxime Martin was the fastest driver in ETCR’s Pool Furious qualifying at Zolder despite missing practice.

The local driver did not set any laps before qualifying due to a battery issue, and therefore pushed slightly on his first sighting lap in Q1 to figure out his reference points for braking and turning.

He was also the first to set a lap in qualifying, posting a 1:36.388. It was a strong effort, as it was only beaten by Cupra EKS’s Mattias Ekström and even then only by five thousandths of a second.

Martin’s team-mate Luca Filippi was 0.481 seconds slower, while Hyundai Motorsport’s chance of taking pole position ended with both of its cars in the middle of the lap.

Nicky Catsburg lost over a second in the first few corners on his lap, a time loss which was not recoverable, while team-mate Mikel Azcona exceeded track limits at turn six and had his laptime deleted.

It did not get too much better for Hyundai in the delayed Q2, as Azcona fell foul of track limits at the same corner, while Catsburg rectified his sector one error but then was too messy in the other two sectors of the lap to contend for pole.

Catsburg’s benchmark was beaten by Martin by 1.039s, with the Belgian going quickest in all three sectors. Championship leader Ekström was faster than in Q1, but this time he was bettered by Martin and came short of pole by 0.288s.

A scruffy first two sectors meant Filippi went slower than Catsburg, but his Q1 lap was good enough to be third fastest overall and therefore make it into quarter-final one alongside the top two qualifiers.

“The closest thing to a perfect lap,” Martin’s team boss Michela Cerruti said of the pole time, and she revealed that it had been under consideration for Martin to get an additional sighting lap due to his lack of practice mileage.

The poleman himself said the result was “really nice for the team” and “especially with the issues we had yesterday, I didn’t even do a lap”.

Not making it out in either segment of Pool Furious’s qualifying was Ekström’s team-mate Jordi Gene, who sat out the action due to cooling concerns with his Cupra e-Racer after it had been driven by Tom Blomqvist in Pool Fast’s qualifying.