ART Grand Prix's Sergey Sirotkin will start race one of the Hockenheim round of the GP2 Series from pole position – his third of the season – after narrowly beating Prema's Pierre Gasly by just 0.016s.
With the threat of rain during the qualifying session, a steady stream of cars circulated in the opening minutes with Sirotkin, Antonio Giovinazzi and Raffaele Marciello trading quickest times before Gasly's attempt put him top.
It had looked as though Gasly had done enough as he climbed out of his car with just a few minutes left on the clock, but Sirotkin sprung a surprise on his final lap to go quickest, with Gasly unable to respond as the clock ticked down to zero.
The Russian failed to set fastest sectors during his final attempt, but three personal best sectors meant it was good enough to secure him pole by the smallest of margins.
Marciello held onto third to start beside Giovinazzi with Oliver Rowland leading Alex Lynn, Norman Nato, Nicholas Latifi, Jordan King and Marvin Kirchhöfer in tenth, all of which were within 0.6s of pole.
In fact, the top 14 drivers were all within a second of the top spot: suggesting Saturday's race could offer up some excitement.
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