Russian driver Egor Orudzhev took the first pole position of the Formula V8 3.5 Series era as the Arden Motorsport beat Louis Deletraz by just 0.013s at Motorland Aragon on Saturday.
It is Orudzhev’s first pole position in the championship that was formerly known as Formula Renault 3.5, but it was a close run thing with Deletraz, with the Fortec Motorsports driver having made the move up from Formula Renault 2.0 Series racing that he was so strong in during 2015.
Orudzhev set a time of 1m40.328s to take top spot, with Deletraz’s time of 1m40.341s just shy of the Russian.
Tom Dillmann will start the race from the third position for AVF ahead of Teo Martin Motorsport’s Yu Kanamaru, who was the best placed of the new teams at Motorland Aragon.
Rene Binder was fifth for Lotus ahead of the second Teo Martin Motorsport entry of Beitske Visser, while Pietro Fittipaldi of Fortec Motorsports and Alfonso Celis Jr will start side by side on row four.
Aurélien Panis was only seven-tenths of a second off the pole position time but ended up down in ninth in the second Arden machine, and will start alongside fellow Frenchman and the first of the SMP Racing team entries Matthieu Vaxiviere.
Motorland Aragon Race 1 Qualifying Result
[table id=968 /]