Aleshin on pole at Spa

The Russian negotiated an eventful half hour qualifying session, which was disrupted by four red flags, to take pole by 0.2s from Draco's Nathanael Berthon.

Motorland winner Sten Pentus was third fastest for Fortec, ahead of Red Bull Junior driver Brendon Hartley. Fastest in free practice on Friday, Comtec's Stefano Coletti had to be content with fifth during today's low-downforce qualifying session.

Formula Renault Eurocup champion Albert Costa will celebrate his birthday weekend by joining the Monegasque on the third row in his Epsilon Euskadi mount.

After the session, Aleshin was in good spirits as he nursed a remedy of tea laced with oranges: "I'm feeling quite sick this morning. I'm not sure exactly what I have come down with, it's some type of flu - perhaps bird flu. When you're sick, you're never quite sure if you can do the job 100%.

"I did my best, and was quite surprised at how good the lap was. My main problem was with the red flags and traffic. Just when you get in a normal rhythm you had to stop.

"Part of the reason behind the success was that I got lucky on one lap with traffic. In fact, it was really good timing, I just crossed the start finish line and then when I got to the first corner I saw a marshal produce a red flag."

Aleshin was in control throughout, posting a 2m04.279s to hold provisional pole when the first red flags were brought out; Esteban Guerrieri had found the gravel on the outside of the downhill, right-hand, Rivage corner on his out lap.

On the restart, Sten Pentus took to the grass at Les Combes but was able to rejoin the track without drama. Championship leader Daniel Ricciardo was less fortunate. In a similar incident to Guerrieri's, the Australian ran wide at Rivage a third of the way into the session.

Both Ricciardo and ISR's Guerrieri and will have their work cut out this afternoon, having had their fastest times deleted for causing stoppages.

Brendon Hartley briefly went to the top of the timesheets at the half-way mark, but Aleshin, following in the Kiwi's wheel tracks, was able to assert his authority immediately.

FHV Interwetten.com's Formula 3 European Open graduate Sergio Canamasas was the next to find the barriers, bringing a halt to proceedings for a third time. The Spaniard's team-mate, Bruno Mendez, was the guilty party for the final red flag.

The European Formula 3 Open champion stalled on the exit of Rivage, and with just two minutes left on the clocks, the session was abandoned.

"I don't think that the crashes were anything to do with running low downforce," said Aleshin. "Two of them were at Rivage and that is just a very tricky corner because of the downhill braking. I've crashed there myself five years ago."

Pos  Driver             Team             Time       Gap
 1.  Mikhail Aleshin    Carlin           2m02.151s
 2.  Nathanael Berthon  Draco            2m02.341s  + 0.190s
 3.  Sten Pentus        Fortec           2m02.438s  + 0.287s
 4.  Brendon Hartley    Tech 1           2m02.560s  + 0.409s
 5.  Stefano Coletti    Comtec           2m02.665s  + 0.514s
 6.  Albert Costa       Epsilon          2m02.792s  + 0.641s
 7.  Jan Charouz        P1               2m02.818s  + 0.667s
 8.  Anton Nebylitskiy  KMP              2m02.824s  + 0.673s
 9.  Daniil Move        Junior Lotus     2m02.927s  + 0.776s
10.  Julian Leal        Draco            2m03.021s  + 0.870s
11.  Jon Lancaster      Fortec           2m03.115s  + 0.964s
12.  Federico Leo       Pons             2m03.200s  + 1.049s
13.  Nelson Panciatici  Junior Lotus     2m03.280s  + 1.129s
14.  Walter Grubmuller  P1               2m03.285s  + 1.134s
15.  Keisuke Kunimoto   Epsilon          2m03.377s  + 1.226s
16.  Greg Mansell       Comtec           2m03.414s  + 1.263s
17.  Filip Salaquarda   ISR              2m03.654s  + 1.503s
18.  Victor Garcia      KMP              2m03.711s  + 1.560s
19.  Jake Rosenzweig    Carlin           2m03.718s  + 1.567s
20.  Daniel Zampieri    Pons             2m03.942s  + 1.791s
21.  Bruno Mendez       Interwetten      2m05.074s  + 2.923s
22.  Sergio Canamasas   Interwetten      2m17.559s  + 15.40s
23.  Daniel Ricciardo   Tech 1           no time
24.  Esteban Guerrieri  ISR              no time