Gabriel Bortoleto will start ahead of his title rival Isack Hadjar for the Abu Dhabi Feature race after Victor Martins set the fastest lap in Formula 2 Qualifying.
Bortoleto looked the quickest of the championship contenders and Paul Aron, who still has a shot at the F2 title, put his Hitech car in third.
Hadjar will line up from fourth but will start ahead of Bortoleto in the Sprint race on Saturday.
With neither driver taking pole and grabbing the extra points available, the gap remains at just half a point between the duo.
Advantage Bortoleto after F2 Qualifying
Victor Martins was the first to set an early benchmark, going top with a time of 1:36.245 with Paul Aron close behind by 0.317s.
Title contender Bortoleto slotted himself between the duo with a time of 1:36.479s, and Hadjar’s first lap was only good enough for 14th.
Replays showed that multiple drivers were approaching the final corner very slowly, which affected Hadjar’s outlap.
On the drivers’ second attempts, Kimi Antonelli improved to second before Martins improved on his initial time with a 1:36.191s.
Aron momentarily jumped ahead of Bortoleto but the Brazillian driver set the fastest lap to take provisional pole off the ART driver with a 1:36.050s.
His rival Hadjar finally showcased his true pace and jumped up to fifth, exactly four-tenths off Bortoleto, as he exclaimed over the radio that he felt he could claim pole.
The other Invicta Racing car of Kush Maini set a lap time good enough for third behind Martins in second at the halfway mark of the qualifying session.
With 11 minutes left, the drivers piled out of the pits for their final runs.
Martins was the first to improve significantly, going fastest with a lap time of 1:35.745s.
Hadjar leapt ahead of Bortoleto and up into second, 0.128s off pole as he showed his frustrations over the radio, claiming the lap was “not good enough”.
Bortoleto crucially improved to go second, ahead of the Campos Racing car, and only just missed out on provisional pole in Abu Dhabi by 0.035s.
Rafael Villagomez brought out the red flag soon after with four minutes and 19 seconds left as the stewards decided there was enough time left for more laps to be completed.
Bortoleto also felt disappointed after his lap, questioning why his team decided to wait so long to send him out, pointing out they could have been impacted by the red flag.
When the session resumed, it was clear the 20-year-old was heard by his team as they sent him out before Hadjar.
Bortoleto went first and narrowly avoided improving on his fastest lap as most of the drivers struggled to go quicker.
However, Aron did improve to go third, splitting the championship contenders as Hadjar also failed to improve on his final lap.
This meant Martins would start from pole position for the Feature race on Sunday after setting the fastest lap time of 1.35.745s.
Hadjar was left speechless after he missed out on pole and despite qualifying ahead of his title rival, Bortoleto complained about being too slow in the final corner.
Dino Beganovic impressed yet again, setting a lap time good enough for fifth behind Hadjar.
Maini ended up in sixth and Pepe Marti in seventh, crucial positions for their respective teams – Campos and Invicta.
Ritomo Miyata finished in eighth, Joshua Durksen in ninth and Amaury Cordeel rounded off the top 10.
Cordell will therefore start Saturday’s Sprint race from pole position ahead of Durksen on the front row.
After the session, Maini was handed a three-place grid penalty for impeding DAMS Lucas Oil driver Jak Crawford.
This bumps him down the starting order to eighth for the Sprint race after he was set to start from fifth place.
Beganovic, Hadjar and Aron all move up one place to fifth, sixth and seventh respectively.
READ MORE: Isack Hadjar and Gabriel Bortoleto prepare for F2 title showdown
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