Canadian McLeod dictates Qualifying over the Douro in Porto, Portugal

In front of 250,000 spectators, Pete McLeod dominated Qualifying once again when he crossed the finish Gate in 1:07.192, taking his fourth Qualifying win in a row.

It’s no surprise that the pilot closest to McLeod’s time was current championship leader, Kirby Chambliss who was 0.750s behind the Canadian.

Yoshihide Muroya, who missed yesterday’s flying sessions, showed no rustiness as he put in a time of 1:07.972. A strong enough time for third, just 0.030s behind Chambliss.

Petr Kopfstein was on fire as he put in a run that saw him in fourth. He has looked comfortable in this track since the first flying session. Just behind Kopfstein was Michael Goulian and Matt Hall behind him.

Martin Sonka, who has the track record and sits in joint second in the championship, couldn’t improve on his time from earlier and saw himself slip to seventh in Qualifying.

Current World Champion Matthias Dolderer’s woes continued as he could only set a time that would see him finish in ninth.

Juan Velarde was unable to fly in Qualifying after a propeller strike on landing after the earlier Free Practice 3 session. After a prop strike the aircraft requires an engine change, which can take up to 10 hours. So for Velarde to be able to fly in tomorrow’s race he had to get his technician, Ted Reynolds, to start work on his raceplane straight away.

Cristian Bolton was another pilot that had to miss Qualifying, he had technical problems which he was unable to fix in time for the flying session, but will be competing in tomorrow’s race.

The Round of 14 begins tomorrow at 13:00 local time. You can catch all the action live, right HERE.

Master Class Qualifying results

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