McLaren Formula 1 Junior driver Stoffel Vandoorne claimed a record sixth consecutive GP2 pole position for round three of the championship at Barcelona.
The Belgian, who hasn’t been beaten to pole since August 2014, dominated free practice and carried his strong form into qualifying, setting the early pace on his first run on the soft compound Pirellis.
Vandoorne’s time stood firm until Williams F1 development driver Alex Lynn bettered the Belgian on his second run. Lynn’s time however didn’t last long as Vandoorne found half a second on his previous best to set a time of 1m29.273s, 0.407s ahead of Lynn.
Lynn’s DAMS team-mate Pierre Gasly struggled on his first run down in 12th place but was able to improve on his second run to finish the session in 3rd, 0.778s off Vandoorne’s pole time.
Russian Time driver Mitch Evans and Racing Engineering’s Alexander Rossi were very closely matched with less than a tenth between the pair. Evans could have finished the session higher but he failed to improve on his second run, leaving him eight tenths off pole.
Daniel de Jong completed his career best GP2 qualifying in sixth ahead of Ferrari protege Raffaele Marciello who tested for Sauber F1 Team in free practice one.
Bahrain winner Rio Haryanto was eighth fastest ahead of debutant Nick Yelloly for Hilmer Motorsport who had a strong showing in what was their debut qualifying session of the year. In the second Hilmer the returning Johnny Cecotto Jr could only manage to qualify in 21st.
Julian Leal completed the top ten, five tenths ahead of Carlin team-mate Marco Sorensen in 18th.
The second Russian Time of Artem Markelov will start from the back of the grid after the Russian failed to set a time.
Markelov stopped out on track at Turn 4 which brought out the Red Flag early in the session. The session was quickly resumed with 27 minutes remaining.
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