Nikita Bedrin secured his fifth pole of the year with a fourth consecutive Q2 pole at the Red Bull Ring on Saturday.
The championship leader, who has a 68-point lead of Rodin Motorsport’s Maxim Rehm prior to race one this afternoon, showed his quality again in Q2, securing pole by over three tenths of a second.
“I’m just putting everything together,” said Bedrin. “I’m doing really good laps every weekend so far in Q2.”
Earning pole in the second qualifying session means that the Italian starts race two from the front of the field. His Q1 time was good enough for third on the grid this afternoon, but Bedrin says he could have done more in that session.
“I could have had another pole,” he admitted. “P3 is still okay to start with [but I] wanted a bit more in Q1, especially from myself as I think I could have delivered it a bit better.”
“I was just a bit cautious on track limits,” explained Bedrin. “There was a big conversation in the [driver] briefing about what should be what, so I played it a bit too safe there, but I decided to go for it in Q2 and delivered it.”
Despite being disappointed with his Q1 performance, Bedrin said he was “very excited” for the weekend’s races around the Red Bull Ring circuit.
“The track is still pretty good to overtake, and we can fight from third,” he said. “You can race almost every straight which is very good. The pace seems to be there so hopefully we can make some progress up.”
Race one starts at 14.25 local time (CEST) this afternoon (Saturday), with Bedrin starting from pole for race two at 09.55 local time tomorrow morning (Sunday).