Jerôme d'Ambrosio takes pole in rainy Swedish Anderstorp

Heavy downpours dominated today’s Swedish qualifying for round nine of International Formula Master (IFM) in Anderstorp with Cram Competition’s Jerome D’Ambrosio eventually claiming pole position.

No less than eight drivers topped the timesheets throughout the 30-minute session and as the track dried, the lap times decreased dramatically. Driver classification leader D’Ambrosio set the fastest time of 1:36.642 with only seconds to spare whilst second position went to Promotorsport Marcello Puglisi, also setting his best time in the last moments of qualifying.

Porto race winner Norbert Siedler claimed third place in his only second weekend with ADM Motorsport whilst IFM’s Scandinavian drivers Kasper Andersen (J.D Motorsport), Juho Annala (Jenzer Motorsport) and Sami Isohella (Team Soderman) will start tomorrow’s race in 12th, 14th and 27th position respectively.

"Great session, the main thing is that the track dried towards the end of the session. The sun came out; I spent a lot of time on the radio talking to the team to manage the traffic as best as possible which helped a lot. Then it was just a matter of staying calm throughout the session and waiting for the track to dry out, that’s really the main thing that did it!"

"At the beginning of the session, we had a few problems with the car so we tried different changes during the time to improve. Then with five minutes to the end, I came into the pits and we made a last set of changes. That was much quicker and the track was quite dry so it worked.

For tomorrow’s race, I don’t know; it depends a lot on the weather and that is unknown at the moment. I hope to do like Porto and be at the top, hopefully fight with D’Ambrosio and win!"

"The car was really good; we made some changes in the middle of the session and put some new tyres on. We had to watch out for traffic but otherwise it went really well. I didn’t push that hard during the middle of the session because we knew the lap-times would go down at the end and that it was best to save the car for then. With only a few minutes to go, the track was great…we could have almost driven on slicks."

1. Jerome D'Ambrosio (BEL), Cram Competition, 1:36.642

2. Marcello Puglisi (ITA), Promotorsport, 1:37.930

3. Norbert Siedler (AUT), ADM Motorsport, 1:38.056

4. Arturo Llobel (ESP), Cram Competition, 1:38.172

5. Marco Bonanomi (ITA), Euronova Racing, 1:38.229

6. Pierre Ragues (FRA), Euronova Racing, 1:38.311

7. Frankie Provenzano (ITA), ADM Motorsport, 1:38.512

8. Pablo Sanchez Lopez (MEX), Alan Racing, 1:38.523

Live coverage of IFM’s fifth round will begin on Eurosport Saturday 28 July from 12.00 (CET) onwards followed by Sunday’s coverage on Eurosport 2 starting at 10.15 (CET).

Live streaming will be available on www.eurosport.com  and www.formulamaster.net

- RSM - also photo