Nasr secures first British F3 poles

A flurry of improvements during the final five minutes determined the sharp end of the grid order and Brazilian rookie Nasr (Raikkonen Robertson Racing) "put everything together" to knock Carlin's James Calado off the top spot at the death and claim pole for tomorrow's 40-minute 'feature' race.

Having been on top before Calado's own last-minute improvement, Nasr's second best time remained good enough to give him pole for this afternoon's first race as well.

Yellow flags during the final minute caused many to question the validity of the top times and officials are currently reviewing the times to see if any drivers improved under yellows.

Fortec's Daniel McKenzie, who sat on provisional pole with two and a half minutes to go, was among the fiercest critics of the late improvers. He slipped to fourth following late efforts by Nasr, Calado and Hitech's Will Buller.

McKenzie's Fortec team-mate Oli Webb led the way at the mid-point of the session, but slumped to fifth after finding only three hundredths of a second on his second set of tyres.

Champion Jean-Eric Vergne (Carlin) produced one of his most muted qualifying performances of the season. He could only manage the eighth fastest time on his first set of tyres, before improving to sixth later on. He finished up over six tenths off the pace.

Raikkonen Robertson pairing Carlos Huertas and Daisuke Nakajima were seventh and ninth, sandwiching Carlin's Adriano Buzaid, while Rupert Svendsen-Cook (Carlin) rounded out a top 10 covered by just 0.829 seconds.

T-Sport's Menasheh Idafar claimed the top spot in the National Class in 15th overall, while Hitech's Gabriel Dias wound up 20th after going off at Paddock just three laps into his session.