Buemi takes Norisring pole

The 18-year-old Mucke Motorsport driver, who currently leads the championship standings, put in an impressive lap of 49.416 to break A1GP star Nico Hulkenberg's challenge for pole.

"It was very close," said Buemi. "I didn't want to push too hard with my first set of tyres as I knew that the faster times would be set towards the end of the session. With my second set, I gave everything on every lap."

Hulkenberg, driving for the ASM team, traded places with Buemi several times in the closing stages of the session, but it was the Swiss who was on top when a red flag brought an early end to the session after Red Bull-backed Jean-Karl Vernay clattered the wall at the Esses in his Signature Plus machine. Despite his accident, Vernay will start tenth.

ASM pairing Kamui Kobayashi and Romain Grosjean locked out the second row of the grid. Both were in the fight for pole for much of the session, only for the searing pace of the top two to force them down the order.

Edoardo Mortara, who claimed his first win of the season for Signature at Brands Hatch earlier this month, will start fifth ahead of Tim Sandtler's Jo Zeller Racing machine. Behind them, former Formula BMW world finals winner Marco Holzer and Yann Clairay filled the fourth row, with Tom Dillman taking ninth for ASM.

Manor Motorsport's four drivers endured a difficult session. Cyndie Allemann was best of the quartet in 11th, one place ahead of British F3 race winner Yelmer Buurman.

However, the Dutchman will start 22nd after being hit with a ten-place grid penalty for a pre-qualifying engine change. James James and Franck Mailleux, frontrunners last time out at Brands Hatch, will start only 16th and 18th.

Pos  Driver            Car               Time
 1.  Sebastien Buemi   Dallara/Mercedes  49.416
 2.  N.Hulkenberg      Dallara/Mercedes  49.608  + 0.192
 3.  Kamui Kobayashi   Dallara/Mercedes  49.696  + 0.280
 4.  Romain Grosjean   Dallara/Mercedes  49.696  + 0.280
 5.  Edoardo Mortara   Dallara/Mercedes  49.855  + 0.439
 6.  Tim Sandtler      Dallara/Mercedes  49.919  + 0.503
 7.  Marco Holzer      Dallara/Opel      49.963  + 0.547
 8.  Yann Clairay      Dallara/Mercedes  49.973  + 0.557
 9.  Tom Dillmann      Dallara/Mercedes  50.068  + 0.652
10.  Jean-Karl Vernay  Dallara/Mercedes  50.106  + 0.690
11.  Cyndie Allemann   Dallara/Mercedes  50.157  + 0.741
12.  Yelmer Buurman    Dallara/Mercedes  50.195  + 0.779
13.  Edoardo Piscopo   Dallara/Mercedes  50.244  + 0.828
14.  Sergei Afanasiev  Dallara/Mercedes  50.245  + 0.829
15.  R.van der Zande   Dallara/Mercedes  50.325  + 0.909
16.  James Jakes       Dallara/Mercedes  50.330  + 0.914
17.  Filip Salaquarda  Dallara/Mercedes  50.356  + 0.940
18.  Michael Patrizi   Dallara/Mercedes  50.506  + 1.090
19.  Franck Mailleux   Dallara/Mercedes  50.572  + 1.156
20.  Daniel Clos       Dallara/Mercedes  50.576  + 1.160
21.  H.Schlegelmilch   Dallara/Mercedes  50.759  + 1.343
22.  Basil Shaaban     Dallara/Mercedes  50.850  + 1.434