Title-chasing Jean-Eric Vergne takes home Formula Renault 3.5 pole at Paul Ricard

On the series' first visit to the Provence circuit, the Frenchman bumped Epic Racing's Albert Costa from provisional pole on his last flying lap.

Costa, searching for his maiden win in the championship, will join Vergne on the front row of this afternoon's race. The Spaniard was just 0.023 seconds adrift of Vergne's effort.

Third-placed Brendon Hartley, returning from a two-race GP2 sojourn with Ocean Racing Technology, also produced a late effort after the appearance of the chequered flag to come within 0.1s of the pole time.

Virgin's Formula 1 third driver Robert Wickens has seen his championship lead reduced by 10 points today. His Carlin team successfully overturned a penalty sustained by team-mate Vergne at Monza on appeal.

Wickens will start from fourth, ahead of Alexander Rossi. Fortec's American racer led the session with just two minutes left on the clocks, but was subsequently unable to improve on his lap of 1m51.586s.

ISR's Daniel Ricciardo completed the top six. This will be the final round of the 2011 season that the HRT F1 driver competes in, as the Barcelona finale clashes with the Japanese Grand Prix on October 8-9.

Jake Rosenzweig recovered from steering problems in Friday's free practice to take a commendable seventh for Mofaz.

The second Epic Racing entry of Estonian Sten Pentus ended the morning in eighth. The team is operating from a new workshop in the Spanish city of Vitoria-Gasteiz. Epic is keen to emphasise its independence from Epsilon Euskadi, whose motorsport operation it acquired in a management buyout pre-season.

Pos  Driver             Team             Time       Gap
 1.  Jean-Eric Vergne   Carlin           1m51.423s
 2.  Albert Costa       Epic             1m51.446s  + 0.023s
 3.  Brendon Hartley    Gravity-Charouz  1m51.506s  + 0.083s
 4.  Robert Wickens     Carlin           1m51.545s  + 0.122s
 5.  Alexander Rossi    Fortec           1m51.586s  + 0.163s
 6.  Daniel Ricciardo   ISR              1m51.745s  + 0.322s
 7.  Jake Rosenzweig    Mofaz            1m51.888s  + 0.465s
 8.  Sten Pentus        Epic             1m51.892s  + 0.469s
 9.  Daniil Move        P1               1m52.045s  + 0.622s
10.  Kevin Korjus       Tech 1           1m52.108s  + 0.685s
11.  Nathanael Berthon  ISR              1m52.137s  + 0.714s
12.  Daniel Zampieri    BVM Target       1m52.178s  + 0.755s
13.  Cesar Ramos        Fortec           1m52.202s  + 0.779s
14.  Oliver Webb        Pons             1m52.207s  + 0.784s
15.  Jan Charouz        Gravity-Charouz  1m52.247s  + 0.824s
16.  Sergio Canamasas   BVM Target       1m52.346s  + 0.923s
17.  Walter Grubmuller  P1               1m52.357s  + 0.934s
18.  Nick Yelloly       Pons             1m52.358s  + 0.935s
19.  Andre Negrao       Draco            1m52.391s  + 0.968s
20.  Stephane Richelmi  Draco            1m52.509s  + 1.086s
21.  Nelson Panciatici  KMP              1m52.548s  + 1.125s
22.  Fairuz Fauzy       Mofaz            1m52.657s  + 1.234s
23.  Arthur Pic         Tech 1           1m52.865s  + 1.442s
24.  Anton Nebylitskiy  KMP              1m52.930s  + 1.507s
25.  Daniel de Jong     Comtec           1m53.113s  + 1.690s
26.  Daniel McKenzie    Comtec           1m53.253s  + 1.830s