HENRY FOOTE BAGS MAIDEN POLE AT DONINGTON PARK

Henry Foote bagged his maiden pole in the Mairon Motorsport MINI CHALLENGE Trophy in a record-breaking session at Donington Park.

The Race Car Consultants driver was one of eleven drivers to break the previous qualifying lap record during the 30 minute session, which was delayed slightly by an early red flag caused by Lexie Powell going off into the gravel at McLeans on her out lap.

Foote would save his quickest laps to the end of the session and ultimately managed two laps that would have been good enough for pole, which ensured that he will also lead the field away first for the opening race of the weekend later this afternoon.

It marked a best qualifying result yet for Foote as he now looks to try and secure a maiden race win.

“At the start of the session, we knew we had the pace,” he said. “This is one of my favourite circuits and we went with a different strategy of getting clean air and it paid off.

“It’s been a long time coming as the pace has been in the car but I had to get the right mindset and not make any mistakes. It all came together on the final two laps which are probably some of the best laps I’ve done, and I’m really happy with the result.”

Foote ended up a tenth of a second clear of defending champion Alex Keens who put his Graves Motorsport car on the front row of the grid, giving him a notable advantage over current points leader Matt Luff who failed to make it into the top ten.

Chris Doble was third quickest as he too scored his best qualifying result to date ahead of Harry Smith, with Westbourne Motorsport duo Luca Marinoni Osborne and Rhys Hurd sharing row three – the latter once again running as a Guest entrant this weekend.

Isaac Doble took seventh to put all three Race Car Consultants entries towards the sharp end of the field, with Josh Wilby, Josh Selvadorai and Richard Jepp rounding out the top ten.