Surprise pole position for Reid
New Zealand's Jonny Reid has claimed a surprise pole position in Brno.
New Zealand's Jonny Reid has claimed a surprise pole position for Sunday's opening sprint race at the Czech A1 Grand Prix.
Reid emerged quickest on aggregate after the four timed sessions at the Brno track, his aggregate time of three minutes 30.053 seconds being completed with a 1:45.040s effort late on.
Reid's efforts thus edged him ahead of Germany's Niko Hulkenburg, the early championship leaders having taken provisional pole away from New Zealand in the final session, and Malaysia's Alex Yoong.
"It was tough," Reid later admitted. "The final session was all very intense because we were waiting.
"Then Germany went out and set the pace so we had to go back out. I knew that if I got within three tenths (of a second) of my best lap it was comfortable," he told autosport.com.
Meanwhile Great Britain's Robbie Kerr, back in the car after Darren Manning raced in the season opener at Zandvoort, emerged fourth quickest.
"I'm a little bit disappointed," Kerr later admitted. "We should be higher up the grid.
"We knew that New Zealand and Germany would be strong because both Nico and Jonny have experience of the circuit.
"Obviously you're not happy unless you are on pole, but we know we have a good set-up for the race and good pace on old tyres."
Cheng Congfu gave China their best ever qualifying result with fifth place on the grid, ahead of Canada's James Hinchcliffe.
The USA's Phil Giebler was seventh quickest ahead of the Czech Republic's Tomas Enge.
But defending champions France struggled, with a mistake from Nicolas Lapierre in the third session leaving them only ninth overall.
Czech A1 Grand Prix, qualifying:
1 NEW ZEALAND Jonny Reid 3:30.053
2 GERMANY Nico Hulkenberg 3:30.524
3 MALAYSIA Alex Yoong 3:31.051
4 GREAT BRITAIN Robbie Kerr 3:31.400
5 CHINA Congfu Cheng 3:31.531
6 CANADA James Hinchcliffe 3:31.673
7 USA Philip Giebler 3:31.743
8 CZECH REPUBLIC Tomas Enge 3:32.016
9 FRANCE Nicolas Lapierre 3:32.227
10 SWITZERLAND Sebastien Buemi 3:32.774
11 MEXICO Salvador Duran 3:32.943
12 NETHERLANDS Jeroen Bleekemolen 3:32.976
13 LEBANON Graham Rahal 3:33.360
14 SOUTH AFRICA Stephen Simpson 3:33.676
15 BRAZIL Tuka Rocha 3:33.732
16 INDONESIA Ananda Mikola 3:34.079
17 ITALY Pier Guidi Alessandro 3:34.897
18 IRELAND Michael Devaney 3:35.306
19 INDIA Armaan Ebrahim 3:36.076
20 AUSTRALIA Karl Reindler 3:37.495
21 GREECE Takis Kaitazis 3:38.020
22 SINGAPORE Denis Lian 3:38.767
23 PAKISTAN Nur Ali 3:42.593
