Lausitz qual 2 Paffett powers to pole
Gary Paffett will start this afternoon's German F3 race, the ninth round of the championship, from pole position. Paffett set a time of 1m36.389s with three minutes of the 45 minute session remaining to relegate ever-improving Team Ghinzani driver Robert Doornbos to pole by 0.123s.
Doornbos had clocked his best time with around twenty minutes of the session remaining, but yellow flags were briefly brought out when two drivers spun, spoiling the final attempts of several of the front runners.
With a little over 0.9s covering the top 13 on the grid, competition was extremely tough, with tenths of a second lost potentially costing three or four places on the grid.
Kousuke Matsuura, who lies fourth in the championship and beat Paffett to pole position in yesterday's qualifying session for tomorrow's tenth round, will start third on the grid alongside Vitantonio Liuzzi. The Italian, who leads the rookie points standings, put in one of his most impressive qualifying performance of the season to start ahead of fellow F3 novice Timo Glock, himself improving on his eighth place yesterday.
Opel Team BSR team-mates Bernhard Auinger and Frank Diefenbacher, Paffett's closest championship challengers, languished in eighth and ninth positions respectively, while Norbert Siedler, with only one points finish this season, impressed by setting the sixth fastest time.
Nordic Racing F3000 refugee Ryan Briscoe improved on his first qualifying 17th to start 13th in his PREMA Motorsport Dallara.
Paffett will be looking to make it a perfect day by converting his pole position into his third consecutive victory and extend his championship lead, which currently stands at 17 points.
The first race is scheduled to start at 15.30 BST today, with the second at 08.15 BST tomorrow morning.
Gary Paffett, Team Rosberg, Dallara-Opel, 1m36.389s
Robert Doornbos, Team Ghinzani, Dallara-Mugen, 1m36.512s
Kousuke Matsuura, PREMA Powerteam, Dallara-Opel, 1m36.682s
Vitantonio Liuzzi, Opel Team BSR, Dallara-Opel, 1m36.786s
Timo Glock, Opel Team KMS, Dallara-Opel, 1m36.815s
Norbert Siedler, Swiss Racing Team, Dallara-Opel, 1m36.874s
Jeffrey van Hooydonk, Team Ghinzani, Dallara-Opel, 1m36.904s
Bernhard Auinger, Opel Team BSR, Dallara-Opel, 1m36.905
Frank Diefenbacher, Opel Team BSR, Dallara-Opel, 1m37.034
Cesar Campanico, PREMA Powerteam, Dallara-Opel, 1m37.053s
Ryan Briscoe, PREMA Powerteam, Dallara-Opel, 1m37.277s
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