Rising Serpent star Oscar Cabezas finished off the first day of qualifying with a brilliant run to go second fastest in the last of Friday\'s qualifying heats.
Suffering an engine cut out on the opening lap of the day\'s first heat, when the track was at its best, and more drama in heat 2, the SDD drivers was lying in 123rd entering into the 3rd round of qualifiers despite smashing the ARCA track record in Heat 1 with his Mega MF powered 720.
Rising to the challenge Oscar put in a superb drive to post the second fastest time and further reduced the track\'s lap record to 16.712 seconds. His 18 lap run puts him just over a second off overnight Top Qualifier Teemu Leino from Finland.
Next up was another Serpent driver, current European 1:10 200mm B Champion Alessio Mazzeo doing a fine job in the morning qualifier to sit 3rd on the timesheets.
Michael Salven, the Top Qualifier at the 2006 European Championship, made it three Serpent\'s in the Top 6. Troubled runs in Heats 1 and 2 also meant the multiple former EC Champion had to rely on his third heat for a time. While the track was not at its best the German did a great job to post the sixth fastest time.
Salven is very pleased with the overall performance of Team Serpent particularly with 2 cars, both being driven by emerging young stars of the sport, currently lying in a direct Main Final qualifying position.
With one last heat to run it is still all to play for in Madrid with the general feeling being that the TQ time will be set in Saturday morning\'s final qualifier.
[b]Qualifying positions after Round 3 of 4
Top 10[/b]
1. Teemu Leino - 18 laps in 5:07.684
2. Oscar Cabezas (Serpent/Mega) - 18 laps in 5:08.895
3. Alessio Mazzeo (Serpent/Max) - 18 laps in 5:09.569
4. Adrien Bertin - 18 laps in 5:09.880
5. Francesco Tironi - 18 laps in 5:11.911
6. Michael Salven (Serpent/Mega) - 18 laps in 5:11.996
7. Martin Christensen - 18 laps in 5:12.200
8. Martin Hudy - 18 laps in 5:12.270
9. Niki Duina - 18 laps in 5:12.276
10.Helge Johannessen - 18 laps in 5:12.328
