France F3: Hughes beats Daruvala late on for pole position

Hughes had promised that the HWA squad was better than its opening weekend in Barcelona in which it struggled, and on his very last flying lap he was one of the only drivers to summon a big improvement as he jumped Prema Racing's Jehan Daruvala.

Daruvala was over 0.4s ahead for most of the session and looked comfortable, but he couldn't improve on his last lap and Hughes pinched pole by just under a tenth.

Robert Shwartzman made sure it was two Prema cars in the top three, but the Ferrari junior looked just a step behind Daruvala during the session.

Pedro Piquet had been 21st after the penultimate flying laps, demonstrating how competitive the 29-car field was, but put in a monster lap to jump up to fourth late on, besting the final Prema driver Marcus Armstrong in fifth.

Hitech Grand Prix's Leo Pulcini and Juri Vips took the next two spots - Vips was another driver to light up the timing screens with session-best sectors, but failed to turn that into a late lap time improvement.

Behind Vips, Hughes's team-mate Bent Viscaal secured eighth, ahead of Trident Racing's practice pacesetter Niko Kari and Campos Racing's Alex Peroni.

The top 16 were separated by less than a second in what was another frantic session where strategy and traffic management played a major role.

Amazingly, all three ART Grand Prix-prepared cars are outside of the top 10. Christian Lundgaard - winner of the opening race on the road before a VSC penalty demoted him - was 12th, reigning Formula Renault Eurocup champion Max Fewtrell was 14th and GP3 race winner David Beckmann was 22nd.

Qualifying result