Qualifying: Piquet snatches pole

Australian Briscoe looked to have easily secured pole, and chose not to take to the track in the final minutes of the session in order to conserve tyres for the race. This left Briscoe merely as a spectator as British series regular Piquet put in an absolutely storming lap, claiming pole with less than a minute to go in his session.

Under the unusual qualifying regulations for the race, each of the two qualifying sessions sort one side of the grid, so Briscoe was knocked back to third position for the race, with Christopher Klien starting second after topping the times in the second session. However, the Australian remains confident of a strong performance tomorrow because of his fresh tyres.

Nicolas Lapierre qualified fourth, ahead of Carlin's Jamie Green. Adam Carroll made it three British series runners in the top six. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the qualifying session was the struggles of British series championship leader Alan van der Merwe, who could line up only 10th. The South African felt that he went out too early on his new tyres.

Nelson Piquet Jr 1m33.114s
Christian Klien 1m33.294s
Ryan Briscoe 1m33.238s
Nicolas Lapierre 1m33.333s
Jamie Green 1m33.586s
Adam Carroll 1m33.436s
Markus Winkelhock 1m33.626s
Oliver Pla 1m33.456s
Ronnie Bremer 1m33.745s
Alan van der Merwe 1m33.574s