Fauzy fastest in Aragon Superpole

The Malaysian entered this weekend's final round in fifth place in the standings, with only an outside chance of claiming the runner-up position in the championship. The four points earned for pole will aid the Formula 1 hopeful's chances of bridging the 13 point deficit to current second placed man Charles Pic, who failed to make the Superpole cut.

"I have given myself a great birthday present," said a delighted Fauzy. "It was a difficult start to Superpole caused by the red flag, as it meant we were not really using a new tyre but a scrubbed tyre. I just kept my head-down, though, as I knew what the car could do.

"The times may not have been so good yesterday, but we planned what we needed to do, and this was the day to deliver.

"In the first, reverse grid, race today I will just try to finish as high up as I can. It will be difficult to move up, but I believe that I have a good race car."

Former Formula Master champion Chris van der Drift's hopes of delivering a maiden victory before the end of the season were boosted by taking second place, two tenths adrift of Fauzy's 1m44.070s, to stake a place on the front row for tomorrow's feature race.

Briton Jon Lancaster continued his strong run of form to finish third for Comtec, ahead of champion Bertrand Baguette (Draco).

Eighth place - and therefore pole for race one today - fell to Carlin's Racing Steps supported Oliver Turvey, who will share the front row with improving Italian Federico Leo.

In a bad day for double teams' champion Tech 1 Racing, Brendon Hartley was unable to set a timed lap after his car stopped on circuit with a suspected electrical failure. Team-mate and Silverstone winner Charles Pic had one of his worst qualifying performances of the year, and is set to start from the tenth row of the grid.

"We suspect Brendon had a problem with the electrics," said Tech 1 team boss Simon Abadie. "It could be that a part located behind the seat has broken.

"With Charles we haven't had all the data, but it seems that there was nothing wrong with the car, so perhaps he just couldn't get a good feeling in order to touch the limit. It is not all over as we still have the races to come, and I don't think that things can get any worse."

Pos  Driver               Team             Time       Gap
 1.  Fairuz Fauzy         Mofaz            1m44.070s
 2.  Chris van der Drift  Epsilon Euskadi  1m44.219s  + 0.149s
 3.  Jon Lancaster        Comtec           1m44.267s  + 0.197s
 4.  Bertrand Baguette    Draco            1m44.302s  + 0.232s
 5.  Jaime Alguersuari    Carlin           1m44.314s  + 0.244s
 6.  Daniil Move          P1               1m44.476s  + 0.406s
 7.  Federico Leo         Pons             1m44.488s  + 0.418s
 8.  Oliver Turvey        Carlin           1m44.491s  + 0.421s
 9.  James Walker         P1               1m44.528s  + 0.458s
10.  Greg Mansell         Comtec           1m44.814s  + 0.744s
11.  Marcos Martinez      Pons             1m44.975s  + 0.905s
12.  Brendon Hartley      Tech 1