Nakajima takes maiden F3 pole

The brother of Williams F1 racer Kazuki edged out Carlin driver Max Chilton by the smallest of margins - just 0.001s, but enough to give his Raikkonen Robertson Racing team its first pole position of the season.

"I can't believe it to be honest because I was P9 in the first session," said an incredulous Nakajima, who went off during first qualifying earlier today. "We changed the car but not a lot, just a tiny difference and the car was good. I was just pushing hard and now I'm P1."

The gusty tailwind through Copse and Priory, which made life difficult for the drivers during session one, returned for Q2 and undoubtedly contributed to the slowest times of the weekend so far.

The times didn't come until the last half of the 30-minute session, which created a frantic and traffic-filled fight for the top spot.

Chilton and Nakajima swapped provisional pole between them on consecutive laps before the Japanese had the final say by lapping the International circuit in a 1m15.090s best.

Hitech's Renger van der Zande again set third fastest time, just over a tenth further back, while championship leader Daniel Ricciardo (Carlin), who set five times good enough for pole in Q1, couldn't manage a single one this time and wound up only fourth.

Title rival Walter Grubmuller (Hitech) produced another solid performance to set fifth fastest time. He will line up alongside Carlin's Henry Arundel, who again completed the top six in his Dallara-Volkswagen.

Wayne Boyd again set seventh fastest time and again out qualified his T-Sport team-mate Adriano Buzaid, who continued to struggle and finished up 11th after setting his best time on his 17th and final lap.

After a strong showing in first qualifying, Double R's Carlos Huertas could only manage eighth fastest time in session two, just 0.090s clear of Fortec's Riki Christodoulou.

Carlin's Philip Major produced his best qualifying performance of the season to round out a top 10 covered by just seven tenths of a second, while T-Sport's Gabriel Dias completed a clean sweep of National Class poles in 12th overall.

Pos Driver                 Team            Car   Time          Gap
 1. Daisuke Nakajima       Double R        D/M   1m15.090s
 2. Max Chilton            Carlin          D/V   1m15.091s  +0.001
 3. Renger van der Zande   Hitech          D/M   1m15.216s  +0.126
 4. Daniel Ricciardo       Carlin          D/V   1m15.252s  +0.162
 5. Walter Grubmuller      Hitech          D/M   1m15.393s  +0.303
 6. Henry Arundel          Carlin          D/V   1m15.458s  +0.368
 7. Wayne Boyd             T-Sport         D/V   1m15.503s  +0.413
 8. Carlos Huertas         Double R        D/M   1m15.537s  +0.447
 9. Riki Christodoulou     Fortec          D/M   1m15.627s  +0.537
10. Philip Major           Carlin          D/V   1m15.735s  +0.645
11. Adriano Buzaid         T-Sport         D/V   1m15.910s  +0.820
12. Gabriel Dias           T-Sport         D/H   1m16.194s  +1.104
13. Hywel Lloyd            CF              D/H   1m16.351s  +1.261
14. Jay Bridger            Litespeed       M/M   1m16.493s  +1.403
15. Victor Garcia          Fortec          D/M   1m16.512s  +1.422
16. Daniel McKenzie        Fortec          D/H   1m16.839s  +1.749
17. Stephane Richelmi      Barazi Epsilon  D/M   1m16.999s  +1.909
18. Kevin Chen             Double R        D/M   1m17.438s  +2.348
19. Michele Faccin         West-Tec        D/H   1m18.276s  +3.186
20. Victor Correa          Litespeed       S/H   1m18.463s  +3.373
21. Satrio Hermanto        Litespeed       S/H   1m18.577s  +3.487
22. Maxim Snegirev         West-Tec        D/H   1m19.224s  +4.134