Stoffel Vandoorne stormed to his fourth consecutive pole position in GP2 to set a new series record and move within four points of Felipe Nasr in the championship.
Vandoorne was made to fight hard for his record breaking pole position. Newly crowned champion Jolyon Palmer and team-mate Stephane Richelmi both swapped provisional pole on numerous occasions but it was Vandoorne who came out on top with just three minutes left in the session.
The Belgian set a blistering time of 1:48.088 to edge out Palmer by a mere 0.099 seconds.
By clinching pole position Vandoorne picked up four crucial points in the fight for 2nd in the championship with Nasr. With the four points Vandoorne moves onto 196, just four away from Nasr with two races left.
In the fight for the Team Championship DAMS have taken the upper hand with Palmer and Richelmi 2nd and 3rd while Nasr and Julian Leal qualified 5th and 10th respectively.
There were no real surprise inclusions in the top ten except from a stunning 6th place for Pierre Gasly who qualified ahead of his more experience team-mate Rio Haryanto who starts 9th.
Mitch Evans managed to qualify 4th in the #1 RT Russian Time car. Nasr was more than seven tenths off pole and starts on the third row of the grid in 5th.
Arthur Pic, Stefano Coletti, Haryanto and Leal rounded out the top 10. Raffaele Marciello who qualified 8th will start from 13th due to a five-place grid penalty he picked up in Sochi.
Race one, a 31-lap feature race, starts at 14:40 tomorrow and is live on Sky Sports F1.
1. Stoffel Vandoorne ART Grand Prix 1:48.088s 114.942mph (11 laps)
2. Jolyon Palmer DAMS 1:48.187s 114.837mph + 0.099s (10 laps)
3. Stéphane Richelmi DAMS 1:48.374s 114.639mph + 0.286s (11 laps)
4. Mitch Evans Russian Time 1:48.709s 114.286mph + 0.621s (11 laps)
5. Felipe Nasr Carlin 1:48.873s 114.114mph + 0.785s (11 laps)
6. Pierre Gasly EQ8 Caterham Racing 1:48.973s 114.009mph + 0.885s (12 laps)
7. Arthur Pic Campos Racing 1:48.985s 113.997mph + 0.897s (10 laps)
8. Raffaele Marciello * Racing Engineering 1:49.023s 113.957mph + 0.935s (11 laps)
9. Stefano Coletti Racing Engineering 1:49.326s 113.641mph + 1.238s (11 laps)
10. Rio Haryanto EQ8 Caterham Racing 1:49.338s 113.628mph + 1.250s (11 laps)
11. Julian Leal Carlin 1:49.395s 113.569mph + 1.307s (11 laps)
12. Johnny Cecotto Jr. Trident 1:49.430s 113.533mph + 1.342s (12 laps)
13. Takuya Izawa ART Grand Prix 1:49.500s 113.460mph + 1.412s (11 laps)
14. Sergio Canamasas Trident 1:49.505s 113.455mph + 1.417s (12 laps)
15. Nathanaël Berthon Venezuela GP Lazarus 1:49.518s 113.442mph + 1.430s (11 laps)
16. Kimiya Sato Campos Racing 1:49.618s 113.338mph + 1.530s (10 laps)
17. Daniel De Jong MP Motorsport 1:49.667s 113.288mph + 1.579s (10 laps)
18. Nicholas Latifi Hilmer Motorsport 1:49.676s 113.278mph + 1.588s (11 laps)
19. André Negrao Arden International 1:49.677s 113.277mph + 1.589s (11 laps)
20. Conor Daly Venezuela GP Lazarus 1:49.721s 113.232mph + 1.633s (11 laps)
21. Rene Binder Arden International 1:49.721s 113.232mph + 1.633s (11 laps)
22. Marco Sorensen MP Motorsport 1:49.736s 113.216mph + 1.648s (11 laps)
23. Simon Trummer Rapax 1:49.794s 113.157mph + 1.706s (12 laps)
24. Jon Lancaster Hilmer Motorsport 1:49.885s 113.063mph + 1.797s (11 laps)
25. Kevin Giovesi Rapax 1:50.012s 112.932mph + 1.924s (14 laps)
26. Artem Markelov Russian Time 1:50.414s 112.521mph + 2.326s (10 laps)
