Turbo M3 Secures Pole Position at FD Prospec Round 3, Brutskiy Reigns Supreme

The Formula Drift Prospec series was established back in 2014 when it was still known as Pro 2. Dan Savage was the first Prospec Champion, and he campaigned an LS-powered Mazda RX-8. He is one of four drivers originating from the United States to have won the Prospec series, alongside Kevin Lawrence, Travis Reeder, and Trenton Beechum.

In 2015, Alex Heilbrunn from Peru took the honors, while Canadian Marc Landreville took his place in 2016. And for the past two years, the dominant driver in the series has been Dmitriy Brutskiy from Belarus.

With that in mind, he is also the only driver to have won the championship twice. And by the looks of it, his goal is set for a third victory this year. If he does go that far, chances are that next year he will be promoted to the Pro series.

Still, going into this round, he was only fourth overall in the championship rankings. Things would have been worse for him if not for the victory scored at Round 2 in Englishtown. The current series leader is 32-year-old Robert Thorne, who placed second overall in the previous event.

Thorne has scored a total of 171 points so far, 13 more than Ben Hobson, who is down in second place. Formula Drift veteran Andy Hateley is third in the championship after an excellent start to the season.

Brutskiy is just 17 points behind the leader, and at this point, it's still impossible to predict who will emerge victoriously this year. But there's a good chance that we'll be able to make a better assessment after tomorrow's battles. Until then, let's see how qualifying went yesterday.

Brutskiy put in a decent 86 points run, which put him on top of the leaderboard for this event. This also means he gets an extra three points to help him out in the quest for the title. Seeing the Belarusian in P1 was nowhere nearly as surprising as having Rye O'Connor in second place.

He was a series rookie in 2021, and this is the best qualifying result of his career so far. He is currently 27th in the rankings, but an extra two points from qualifying will certainly help him move up the ladder.

Meanwhile, Alex Jagger drove his Forsberg Racing Nissan 370Z to third place, proving that he is more than worthy of being fifth overall in the championship this year. Robert Thorne would have to settle for fourth in qualifying, while Tommy Lemaire is down in 13th.

Ben Hobson, Carlos Arietta, and Jack Davis failed to negotiate the Knockout Qualifying session, which means three drivers will be getting bye runs today. That means that Brutskiy, O'Connor, and Jagger will be advancing straight to the Top 16 session, which is set to take place tomorrow.

Everyone else will have to go through the Top 32 tandem runs today at 8:15 PM CDT. Both Amanda Sorensen and Kelsey Rowlings will have to race against some pretty serious opponents. While Amanda was stronger in qualifying, her task is also a lot more difficult as she'll be going up against Tommy Lemaire.

Meanwhile, Kelsey has to tackle Nate Chen, who is currently 13th overall in the championship. Andy Hateley didn't seem like himself yesterday, as he only scored enough points for P27, and today he will be competing against 40-year-old Brian Wadman from New York. We'll report back with official results from the Pro qualifying session and Prospec Top32 battles soon!