Carbone Takes Road Atlanta Pole
Braselton, GA – Victor Carbone took back the championship lead setting a fast lap of 1:25.756 during a 30-minute Road Atlanta qualifying session to take pole and more importantly, three bonus points towards the national championship. Rob Nicholas will start on the outside of the front row, setting his fast lap of 1:25. 776 – two hundredths off Carbone, at the very last second, while Cole Morgan will line up third and now sits one point back in the championship standings.
Carbone’s Alegra Motorsports teammate and fellow Brazilian, Fabio Orsolon, who paced the morning’s practice session, was fourth followed by Jonathan Scarallo in fifth.
The top seven cars are separated by three tenths of a second in a highly competitive field.
“We’re back leading the standings so those were three very important bonus points,” commented Carbone. “Fabio (Orsolon) and I did a great job learning the track yesterday and the Alegra team did an amazing job with the setup. The car is awesome.”
Scarallo was able to bounce back from two incidents during testing yesterday to qualify fifth.
“Yesterday was tough but the R-Sport team worked their butts off making the car new again,” Scarallo said. “My lap was good but the front of the field is so close you can literally just toss a coin to determine the order. We have a good car and plan to make it an exciting race.”
Rounding out the top ten were Tim Kautz, Chris Livengood in the Pinto, Russian Mikhail Goikhberg, making his first F2000 start of 2010, Tim Minor and Chris Gumprecht.
Matthew Inge, returning for the first time since finishing second in the 2009 title fight, will have to come from the back as the #20 K-Hill entry never made the session due to a misfiring Zetec.
The day continues with race one of the weekend, scheduled for 2:15 pm eastern, 18-laps or 30 minutes. Saturday showcases a similar schedule as F2000 competes alongside the Formula Drift tour at Road Atlanta. Fans and competitors can follow live updates, news and photos on www.F2000ChampionshipSeries.com or on Twitter @F2000.
Race 3 Grid
Pos PIC No. Name Best Tm Best Spd In Lap Diff Gap 1 1 23 Victor Carbone 1:25.756 106.628 7 - - 2 2 89 Rob Nicholas/M 1:25.776 106.603 20 +0.020 +0.020 3 3 1 Cole Morgan 1:25.823 106.545 13 +0.067 +0.047 4 4 26 Fabio Orsolon 1:25.829 106.537 15 +0.073 +0.006 5 5 22 Jonathon Scarallo 1:25.864 106.494 17 +0.108 +0.035 6 6 36 Tim Kautz/M 1:25.974 106.358 16 +0.218 +0.110 7 1 37 Chris Livengood 1:26.072 106.237 14 +0.316 +0.098 8 7 10 Mikhail Goikhberg 1:26.113 106.186 13 +0.357 +0.041 9 8 88 Tim Minor/M 1:26.176 106.108 19 +0.420 +0.063 10 9 97 Chris Gumprecht 1:26.409 105.822 18 +0.653 +0.233 11 10 3 Phil Lombardi/M 1:26.579 105.615 11 +0.823 +0.170 12 11 55 Gerald Kraut/M 1:27.062 105.029 16 +1.306 +0.390 13 12 41 Brian Belardi 1:27.220 104.838 12 +1.464 +0.158 14 13 5 Keith McCrone/M 1:26.672 105.501 12 +0.916 +0.093 15 14 27 Craig Clawson/M 1:27.346 104.687 20 +1.590 +0.126 16 15 7 Brent Gilkes/M 1:27.437 104.578 9 +1.681 +0.091 17 16 8 Mark Defer/M 1:27.557 104.435 18 +1.801 +0.120 18 17 28 Ardie Greenamyer/M 1:27.738 104.219 8 +1.982 +0.181 19 18 80 Bobby Caldwell 1:27.744 104.212 5 +1.988 +0.006 20 19 16 Peter Gonzalez/M 1:28.305 103.550 13 +2.549 +0.561 21 20 90 Robert Wright/M 1:28.378 103.465 16 +2.622 +0.073 22 21 51 Dan Denison/M 1:28.391 103.449 17 +2.635 +0.013 23 22 42 Bill Jordan/M 1:28.442 103.390 19 +2.686 +0.051 24 23 06 Tim Paul 1:28.487 103.337 14 +2.731 +0.045 25 24 70 Tom Fatur/M 1:28.504 103.317 11 +2.748 +0.017 26 25 14 Blake Teeter 1:29.571 102.087 13 +3.815 +1.067 27 26 94 Al Guibord,Sr./M 1:31.054 100.424 10 +5.298 +1.483 28 27 20 Matthew Inge -.--- - 0 - - 29 28 69 Paul Farmer/M -.--- - 0 - -