Pole for Idafar at Rockingham

Formula Renault BARC Championship leader Menasheh Idafar showed no signs of relinquishing his title advantage any time soon at Rockingham in Northamptonshire yesterday, Saturday, 19th April, after qualifying on pole position for today’s third round of the season.The 17-year-old racer, driving for Derbyshire based Hillspeed, produced a stunning effort during the round three session to seal his second career pole start by a comfortable 0.263 seconds – his best lap a time of 1m 18.948 seconds (88.85mph).Having been in contention for the top spot throughout the entire 20-minute session, the British-born Bahraini leapt back onto pole position with a fantastic final lap to ensure he starts the first of tomorrow’s races at Rockingham in the best place possible.During this afternoon’s round four session, Menasheh qualified on the front row once again and just missed out on a double pole position by the smallest of margins, a mere six 100ths of a second. His best lap was 1m 19.513 seconds (88.22mph).Nonetheless, his time from the round three session remained unbeaten and so the Ortolan, Gulf Computer Services and Gulfol supported racer also has the satisfaction of being the only driver to lap the 1.95-mile International Super Sports Car Circuit today with a time under the 1m 19 second barrier.Speaking at the conclusion of qualifying, Menasheh said: “Being on pole again is great, I’m really very pleased and I must thank the guys at Hillspeed for giving me a fantastic car. It would have been nice to have taken pole position for both races but being on the front row for race two is obviously good.“We’re ahead of the guys who are closest to us in the championship so that’s important and I’m confident we can fight for a couple of podiums tomorrow. We’re not certain what the weather will do, and I’m sure the races will be hard, but I’m looking forward to it.”With one championship point available to the driver setting pole position for each race in Formula Renault BARC, Menasheh today extended his lead at the top of the standings to four points over nearest rival Ash Davies.Round three of the 2008 Formula Renault BARC Championship is expected to take place at 10.35 tomorrow, Sunday, 20th April, with the fourth round of the campaign scheduled to get underway at approximately 15.00.Provisional 2008 Formula Renault BARC Championship Standings (after Rd3&4 qualifying)1st Menasheh Idafar, 22pts; 2nd Ash Davies, 18pts; 3rd Ollie Hancock, 17pts

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