Burti snatches Snetterton pole

With just one minute to go in the opening half-hour, the Brazilian's Stewart Racing Dallara-Mugen was one-thousandth of a second clear of championship leader Marc Hynes, with Narain Karthikeyan another thousandth adrift in third. Then, on the final lap, Burti lowered his time by 0.007s to cement his pole position.

The second session, later on during the hot afternoon, was slower, although Hynes pulled out all the stops and set a superb fastest-in-session time in his Manor Motorsport Dallara-Mugen.

'I was on a lap a bit better but I went off the road at the Bomb Hole,' said Hynes. 'We changed the set-up from this morning and it helped, but Luciano was quicker in the first session and that's what made the difference.'

It was just as well Burti set his pole-winning time early on, because in the second session his engine was running too hot because of a suspected head gasket problem, meaning that he was restricted to scrubbing in a set of tyres for the race.

'I was hoping no one would improve,' he admitted. 'The track's lacking a bit of grip today, but it's the same for everybody.'

Karthikeyan's Carlin Motorsport team made a shrewd move to give the Indian both his available sets of tyres for the opening session. The Indian was therefore able to vault up the order to third in the closing minutes.

'I think there's more in me than in the car,' he warned. 'You can't make up much time in the fast corners and I'm losing time in the slow ones.'

British teenager Jenson Button continued his recent encouraging form to set fourth fastest time in Promatecme's lead Dallara-Renault, just edging out fellow rookie Matt Davies, who slumped from second to fifth in the closing stages of the opening session after initially running strongly in his Fortec Dallara-Mugen.

Aluizio Coelho, in the second Promatecme car, rounds out the top six ahead of Andrew Kirkaldy (Stewart Racing,) returnee Martin O'Connell (Rowan Racing), Toby Scheckter (Speedsport) and Kristian Kolby, who had an off in the all-important first session in the second Fortec car.