Roman Bilinski has doubled down in Castrol Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship qualifying, claiming the pole at Manfeild for the second time in as many sessions.
An early 1:02.286 was enough to get the job done, topping Australia’s Christian Mansell by 0.193 seconds. Mansell’s compatriot Tommy Smith put in an impressive late time to jump to third at the expense of Kaleb Ngatoa, who starts as the first of the Kiwis from fourth.
Nicola Lacorte and Gerrard Xie lockout the third row, with Liam Sceats qualifying seventh, just 0.015 seconds ahead of Canadian Patrick Woods-Toth.
Just 0.031 seconds separated Sceats from tenth-placed Michael Shin, with an extremely tight session seeing the top 13 separated by less than one second.
Alex Crosbie lines up 12th, next to Elliott Cleary, while Kaden Probst will start 14th.
Bilinski, who comfortably won Saturday’s race, was immediately back on the pace on Sunday morning, jumping to the top of the leaderboard over Mansell on his third lap and going quicker the following circuit to hold a two-tenths advantage mid-way through the session.
Ngatoa jumped into third, ahead of Saturday’s runner-up Lacorte and three-tenths behind Mansell, while Tommy Smith held a 0.088-second advantage over Sceats following the early runs.
Smith then improved on his ninth circuit, jumping to third, ahead of Ngatoa by just 0.023 seconds.
Blinski continued to hold the advantage entering the final minute despite running wide off the exit of Turn 5 and exploring the grass.
Xie put in a late flyer to jump ahead of Sceats for sixth, but there remained little movement amongst the remainder of the field as the chequered flag flew.
The Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship returns to action at 12.51 pm with the reverse top eight grid set from Saturday’s result, where Gerrard Xie starts on pole next to Michael Shin.
The final race of the round begins 1t 3.32 pm, with all sessions shown live on Sky Sport.
Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Round 2 Race 3 grid
Pole | Roman Bilinski |
2nd | Christian Mansell |
3rd | Tommy Smith |
4th | Kaleb Ngatoa |
5th | Nicola Lacorte |
6th | Gerrard Xie |
7th | Liam Sceats |
8th | Patrick Woods-Toth |
9th | Jett Bowling |
10th | Michael Shin |
11th | Elliott Cleary |
12th | Alex Crosbie |
13th | Titus Sherlock |
14th | Kaden Probst |
15th | Landan Matriano Lim |
16th | Jake Bonilla |
17th | Lucas Fecury |
Header Image: Toyota Gazoo Racing (Bruce Jenkins)