Prema Racing’s Pierre Gasly has clinched pole position for the GP2 feature race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain in dominant style.
In the team’s maiden GP2 race weekend, Gasly put in a 1m27.807 on a drying track – following earlier spots of rain – to go almost half a second clear of his nearest challenger.
Gasly set the pace in practice earlier on Friday, beating Alex Lynn, Artem Markelov, Norman Nato and Sergey Sirotkin.
Nato backed up his practice pace in in second place for Racing Engineering, with Lynn and Nicholas Latifi giving DAMS a second-row lock-out for the season opener.
Sirotkin will line up fifth for ART Grand Prix, ahead of Rapax racer Gustav Malja and MP Motorsport’s Oliver Rowland, who set the pace in the early stages of qualifying.
Nobuharu Matsushita was eighth quickest in the second ART GP car, despite encountering traffic on his best lap, with Markelov and rookie Luca Ghiotto completing the top 10 for RUSSIAN TIME and Trident respectively.
Antonio Giovinazzi just missed out on a spot in the top 10 by 0.02 seconds. Raffaele Marciello was 12th in the second RUSSIAN TIME car.
Jordan King and Arthur Pic were next up for Racing Engineering and Rapax, after tough sessions. Meanwhile the experienced Mitch Evans struggled and found himself down in 18th for Campos.
