McLaren-backed Sergio Sette Camara took pole position for Saturday's French Feature race at the Le Castellet circuit in a session that saw early drama.
As the green flag dropped on the session, the cars filed out of the pits to put in some early running, only for Trident's Giuliano Alesi to drive into the rear of Carlin's Louis Deletraz, forcing a red flag after just a few minutes.
Alesi claimed Deletraz brake tested him and the matter has been referred to the stewards for investigation.
Alesi was immediately out of the session with damage to the front of his car. Deletraz meanwhile was able to return to the pits and under the red flag, his Carlin team were able to replace his rear-wing, allowing him to rejoin the action when the session resumed.
Meanwhile Nikita Mazepin's ART car had smoke pouring from the rear as he returned to the pits, signalling a possible engine failure, ending his session prematurely.
Sette Camara was able to put in a flyer to top the times with a 1:43.024 ahead of Callum Ilott and Jack Aitken, but then a second red flag came out when Ralph Boshung came to a halt in his Trident car.
With just over two minutes left on the clock, it was a mad rush for one final attempt as the session resumed once again.
Uni Virtuosi's Guanyu Zhou found the most speed and jumped up to second place, threatening Sette Camara's time, but come the finish line he was three-tenths back with a time of 1:43.344.
Sette Camara meanwhile span on his final attempt, but it didn't matter as his previous lap prior to the second red flag was good enough for pole.
Aitken found a tenth to jump Ilott for third, whilst ART's Nyck de Vries jumped up to fourth, pushing Ilott down to fifth.
Nicholas Latifi was sixth after having his quickest time deleted for exceeding track limits, with Nobuharu Matsushita seventh and Mick Schumacher eighth.
The top ten was rounded out by Dorian Boccolacci and Sean Gelael.
Anthoine Hubert stopped on his final lap and finished up 15th ahead or Jordan King.
