First qualifying: Montin on pole

Montin was in contention for the top spot from the start of the session but started putting real pressure down with 12 minutes of qualifying remaining when he got within 0.005 seconds of then quickest man Sato. After slipping down the order as several other drivers improved their times, Montin then eventually set his best lap of 2m13.214s with less than two minutes of the session remaining.

"At the beginning of the session there was a lot of traffic out there and several crashes, which eventually caused a red flag to come out," said Montin. "Later on I decided to stay on my used tyres as I think the track will improve tomorrow so it will be a lot quicker."

Sato was equally happy with his second place after he was unable to respond to Montin's provisional pole position time at the end of the session, despite stopping halfway through to take on two new tyres.

"I'm pretty happy," he said. "Today is not really important as it is more like a test session. Tomorrow is the day that matters. It is good to be up there at the front of the field and I feel confident for tomorrow."

Frenchman Jonathan Cochet continued his front-running pace as he set the third quickest time, while Portugal's Tiago Monteiro was unable to improve on his fourth quickest time after crashing into the side of Anthony Davidson's car right at the end of the session, click here for separate story.

Japan's Toshihiro Kaneishi and Ryo Fukuda maintained their nation's impressive performance as they finished the session in sixth and seventh.

"I wasn't really pushing today and was maybe at 70% of what I could do," explained Fukuda. "I will only be at 100% when final qualifying is under way. It was not necessary to take any risks today."

After the morning's crash free first practice session, qualifying was marred by several accidents. Yuji Ide and Raffaele Gianmaria crashed on their first lap out of the pits, while Haruki Kurosawa and Sakon Yamamoto also hit the barriers. Briton Mark Taylor and Matteo Bobbi collided and hit the barriers at Fisherman's.