Roy Nissany will start race one at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza from pole position, the second time in 2016 that he will start right at the front of the field.
The Lotus driver set a best time of 1:33.646 to add the Monza pole to his earlier pole at Paul Ricard, and the Israeli driver is eyeing a return to winning ways in a bid to retain some hope of taking the championship in 2016.
Joining Nissany on the front row in what is his best qualifying performance of the season by far will be Fortec Motorsports’ Pietro Fittipaldi, who got within 0.077 seconds of his maiden pole.
Fittipaldi denied Lotus a clean sweep of the front row, with Rene Binder set to start third, while Louis Deletraz put the second Fortec into fourth.
Egor Orudzhev had been leading the way after the first runs but fell to fifth for Arden Motorsport, and looked set to be joined on the third row by William Buller on his return to the series this weekend. However the RP Motorsport driver will drop to tenth after falling foul of a yellow flag offence.
Joining Orudzhev therefore on the third row will be his team-mate Aurélien Panis, while Matthieu Vaxiviere was seventh in the sole SMP Racing machine despite crashing out late in the session at the second Lesmo corner.
Vitor Baptista will start eighth for RP Motorsport ahead of championship leader Tom Dillmann, who struggled throughout the session and was forced to settle for ninth in his AVF by Adrian Vallés machine, just ahead of the penalised Buller.
Teo Martin Motorsport duo Beitske Visser and Yu Kanamaru will start eleventh and twelfth, with the latter also being penalised for a similar yellow flag offence to Buller, while Alfonso Celis Jr and Giuseppe Cipriani complete the field.
Autodromo Nazionale Monza Race 1 Qualifying Result
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