Karthikeyan takes second pole of the day

The 24-year-old from Madras set a stunning pole position time for the second of tomorrow's two races, his Carlin Motorsport Dallara-Mugen Honda lapping a full 0.3secs quicker than his nearest rival.

That is a long gap on the 1.2-mile Brands Indy circuit, which F3 cars lap in 42 seconds. Fellow front row starter Luciano Burti, when asked how he could make up such a deficit, could only shrug: "I wish I knew. That gap here is like half a second on a normal circuit, so well done to him."

Malaysian Alex Yoong, who starts an excellent third, could only suggest: "He must have found a part of the track that we don't know about."

Karthikeyan, who will start both tomorrow's races from pole, grinned: "I have two chances to win! It's amazing. I just get into a rhythm and the car works very well. I don't have to try hard - it just comes. I guess that's what happens when you have a perfect car."

Burti and Stewart Racing just managed to demote Yoong and Alan Docking Racing in the dying moments of the session. "The front row here is very important," said a happy Burti, "and some people say that second place on the [sloping] grid here is better than first."

Yoong, who only made his seasonal debut at Thruxton two weeks ago, said: "I thought we had a car good enough for pole position. We had some oversteer problems in the first session, but the car is spot on now."

Matt Davies completed a successful day by taking fourth spot on the grid for Fortec Motorsport, upholding the team's fortunes. Team mate Kristian Kolby was forced to sit out the session and will start tomorrow's second race from the back of the grid, thanks to his heavy shunt this morning.

Davies felt a mysterious loss of pace out of Clearways onto the pit straight, and was puzzled as to its cause.

This season's two race winners, Jenson Button and Marc Hynes, form the third row, both unable to get a particularly good set-up on Promatecme Dallara-Renault and Manor Dallara-Mugen respectively.