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GP2 Malaysia: Red Bull's Pierre Gasly takes another pole position

GP2 championship leader Pierre Gasly claimed pole position at Sepang in another all-Prema battle in qualifying with team-mate and title rival Antonio Giovinazzi

Red Bull Formula 1 junior Gasly was fastest by three tenths of a second over Giovinazzi after the first runs, only to then spin at Turn 12 on his next attempt.

Giovinazzi improved on his second effort to cut the gap to 0.082 seconds, and that was how the top of the times remained through a disrupted end to the session.

No driver managed to post a time on their second run before Mitch Evans spun into the barriers at the first corner, reporting a brake failure.

That triggered a red flag with three and a half minutes left on the clock, and when the session resumed drivers only had time for one warm-up lap rather than the preferred two.

Any chances for the most to improve their times then evaporated completely when Honda protege Nobuharu Matsushita spun at Turn 14, bringing out the yellow flags.

Giovinazzi had been on a competitive lap but backed out in the incident zone and had to settle for second behind Gasly, who secured his seventh GP2 pole.

Ex-Prema Formula 3 racer Raffaele Marciello was the best driver from outside of the Italian team in third for Russian Time, 0.345s off pole, ahead of ART drivers Sergey Sirotkin and Matsushita.

Alex Lynn appeared on course to improve from sixth place at the end before losing time in the middle sector.

Racing Engineering team-mates Norman Nato and Jordan King will share the fourth row of the grid, with Oliver Rowland and Artem Markelov rounding out the top 10.

QUALIFYING RESULT

Pos Driver Team Gap Laps
1 Pierre Gasly Prema Racing 1m42.181s 9
2 Antonio Giovinazzi Prema Racing 0.082s 10
3 Raffaele Marciello RUSSIAN TIME 0.345s 10
4 Sergey Sirotkin ART Grand Prix 0.347s 11
5 Nobuharu Matsushita ART Grand Prix 0.442s 8
6 Alex Lynn DAMS 0.594s 11
7 Norman Nato Racing Engineering 0.619s 11
8 Jordan King Racing Engineering 0.670s 11
9 Oliver Rowland MP Motorsport 0.721s 11
10 Artem Markelov RUSSIAN TIME 0.753s 10
11 Luca Ghiotto Trident 0.753s 10
12 Nicholas Latifi DAMS 0.949s 11
13 Gustav Malja Rapax 1.043s 13
14 Marvin Kirchhofer Carlin 1.109s 11
15 Johnny Cecotto Jr. Rapax 1.204s 11
16 Mitch Evans Pertamina Campos Racing 1.425s 7
17 Nabil Jeffri Arden International 1.580s 10
18 Daniel de Jong MP Motorsport 1.784s 11
19 Sergio Canamasas Carlin 1.796s 10
20 Sean Gelael Pertamina Campos Racing 1.906s 11
21 Philo Paz Armand Trident 2.397s 12

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