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Teenager Matheo Tuscher takes pole position for opening Formula 2 round at Silverstone

Teenage sensation Matheo Tuscher took pole position for the first race of the 2012 FIA Formula 2 opener at Silverstone on Saturday morning on his series debut

In bitterly cold and windy conditions, the 15-year-old Swiss - the youngest driver ever in F2 - lapped the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit in 1m46.851s. However, just before the end of the session the stewards revealed that they were investigating his driving tactics, as he had already been warned for exceeding track limits. A number of yellow flags had also proliferated the session.

"I'm very happy," said Tuscher of his pole position. "I wasn't really prepared for this. Everything was good, I had a great feeling in the car. I'm a bit nervous ahead of the race, we'll have to see how that goes."

Luciano Bacheta was second fastest, 0.207 seconds slower than Tuscher but ahead of pre-season favourite Christopher Zanella, who was just 0.055s off the front row pace.

"The number of yellow flags in that session were disappointing," said Bacheta. "I had to back-out of a number of laps. I wasn't sure where we were pace-wise, so it's nice to start the season on the front row; I was glad to get a clean lap in."

Zanella added: "I'm quite happy with third, as I only got four laps in practice yesterday."

Also closely-matched were free practice pacesetter Mihai Marinescu, who will start fourth, with Alex Fontana and Dino Zamparelli next up.

Formula Renault 3.5 Series convert Daniel McKenzie was seventh fastest, but one expected frontrunner who will start from the back is Markus Pommer, who went off at Brooklands after failing to set a representative laptime.

Pos  Driver                Time       Gap
 1.  Matheo Tuscher        1m46.851s
 2.  Luciano Bacheta       1m47.058s  + 0.207s
 3.  Christopher Zanella   1m47.113s  + 0.262s
 4.  Mihai Marinescu       1m47.183s  + 0.332s
 5.  Alex Fontana          1m47.257s  + 0.406s
 6.  Dino Zamparelli       1m47.263s  + 0.412s
 7.  Daniel McKenzie       1m47.487s  + 0.636s
 8.  Hector Hurst          1m47.755s  + 0.904s
 9.  Kevin Mirocha         1m47.831s  + 0.980s
10.  David Zhu             1m47.839s  + 0.988s
11.  Plamen Kralev         1m47.933s  + 1.082s
12.  Mauro Calamia         1m48.413s  + 1.562s
13.  Kourosh Khani         1m48.708s  + 1.857s
14.  Parthiva Sureshwaren  1m48.791s  + 1.940s
15.  Samuele Buttarelli    1m48.873s  + 2.022s
16.  Jose Luis Abadin      1m48.947s  + 2.096s
17.  Markus Pommer         1m51.181s  + 4.330s

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