Mortara sets pace at Hockenheim

The newly-crowned champion was never headed once he hit the top of the timesheets, but he had to work hard for his fifth pole of the season as the unlikely duo of Nicolas Marroc and Roberto Merhi edged ever closer to his times in the dying minutes.

Mortara proved he was up to the challenge though, putting in a series of laps that increased his slender advantage until it was out to almost three tenths of a second once time was up.

Marroc got the better of Merhi in their duel for best of the rest. The Frenchman's previous best qualifying performance was a sixth place at Zandvoort.

The two surprise performers left Mortara's usual challengers, Marco Wittmann, Valtteri Bottas, Laurens Vanthoor and Alexander Sims to fill places four to seven. Wittmann had been on course for pole after the first sector of his final hot lap, but he could only manage fourth in the end.

Carlos Munoz, who ran off track in the closing stages while leading the second race at Oschersleben last time out, took eighth, followed by Daniel Juncadella and Antonio Felix da Costa.

Pos  Driver                  Team       Car  Time       Gap
 1.  Edoardo Mortara         Signature  D/V  1m18.604s
 2.  Nicolas Marroc          Prema      D/M  1m18.896s  + 0.292s
 3.  Roberto Merhi           Mucke      D/M  1m18.920s  + 0.316s
 4.  Marco Wittmann          Signature  D/V  1m19.084s  + 0.480s
 5.  Valtteri Bottas         ART        D/M  1m19.085s  + 0.481s
 6.  Laurens Vanthoor        Signature  D/V  1m19.182s  + 0.578s
 7.  Alexander Sims          ART        D/M  1m19.278s  + 0.674s
 8.  Carlos Munoz            Mucke      D/M  1m19.413s  + 0.809s
 9.  Daniel Juncadella       Prema      D/M  1m19.424s  + 0.820s
10.  Antonio Felix da Costa  Motopark   D/V  1m19.481s  + 0.877s
11.  Christoper Zanella      Motopark   D/V  1m19.563s  + 0.959s
12.  Matias Laine            Motopark   D/V  1m19.628s  + 1.024s
13.  Jim Pla                 ART        D/M  1m19.841s  + 1.237s
14.  Sandro Zeller           Jo Zeller  D/M  1m21.189s  + 2.585s