Fauzy secures pole at Spa

The Malaysian continued his form from Thursday's four hour test, where he was fastest, and will share the front row of Saturday's race with Spaniard Alvaro Barba.

Fauzy's former GP2 rival Clivio Piccione had his strongest qualifying performance of the season and will line up third ahead of Barba's compatriot Miguel Molina.

A brief deluge 40 minutes before the session contributed to a number of incidents, and the session was red-flagged three times.

The A group suffered with the worst of the weather by being out on track first, but conditions improved to the extent that most drivers were running on slicks by the end of the delayed session.

The two Alvaros, Barba ahead of Parente, set the early running, but the first red flag appeared after only three minutes when Comtec's Michael Herck suffered a moment.

When the session restarted, the drying track produced rapidly improving times. Pons driver Miguel Molina wiped four seconds from Barba's best to go P1 with six minutes of the session remaining, but Barba responded on his next tour, knocking three seconds off his own previous best, to move back in to top spot.

The excitement was brought to a halt when Jaap van Lagen, making his second outing with Eurointernational, caused the session to be red-flagged once more with just five minutes to go.

Conscious that it would be a two-lap blast for pole on a rapidly improving track, the field queued up en masse at the end of the pitlane, with predominantly slick tyres fitted.

Charlie Kimball's first effort left him quickest from Guillaume Moreau and James Walker, but the order turned on its head again on the completion of the second run.

Several names, including those of Mikhail Aleshin and Parente flashed up in pole, before Barba finally displaced them all. Alvaro will be hoping to emulate previous Draco driver Pastor Maldonado who won at the venue last year.

"I only did two laps on dry tyres," said Barba. "I didn't have traffic on the last two laps. On the first try after the re-start I saw a few cars were quicker than me, and then as the track dried I pushed more.

"Even so, when I came into my pit I didn't know I was fastest (in the group). My car was really perfect in the wet, but I think we have a little more work to do if the race is dry tomorrow. I'd actually prefer the downhill start compared to the one at La Source. It is such a slow corner it can get crazy with so many cars going into it."

The B session was red-flagged almost immediately as the unfortunate Richard Philippe hit trouble. Halfway through the session Fauzy was in first spot on a 2:03.877, two-tenths ahead of Piccione and Davide Valsecchi.

That order was soon reversed with Valsecchi leading Piccione, and Fauzy back in third. However, Fairuz was to have the last say, setting a pole time of 2:03.224 with a minute left on the clocks.

"I'm happy that we carried on with the platform we started yesterday," said Fauzy. "I was happy to be quick in practice, but you never really know with a test if someone has the potential to be quicker than you.

"I did all the laps in qualifying on slicks, but it was difficult to get the most from them in the beginning.

"Although I was quite quick straight from the off, Xavier Maasen spun in front of me at the last corner towards the end and held me up. Personally I prefer it that the race tomorrow will start from the F1 grid rather than the downhill start (before Eau Rouge), as it won't be in so easy for the others to get into my slipstream."

The drivers best placed to overhaul Sebastian Vettel's championship lead had mixed fortunes. Alvaro Parente, second in the standings, will line up in eighth with Filipe Albuquerque and Ben Hanley down in eleventh and twelfth positions.

Guillaume Moreau, pole-sitter last time out at the Hungaroring, put in a brave effort to set a provisional 22nd position having injured his hand in a Thursday practice crash.

The setback has put an end to the Frenchman's commitments with Courage in the Le Mans Series this weekend, where he will be replaced by Vitaly Petrov, but Guillaume should race with KTR in the World Series tomorrow.

Combined qualifying positions:

Pos  Driver            Team                 Time
 1.  Fairuz Fauzy      Cram Competition     2:03.424
 2.  Alvaro Barba      Draco Racing         2:05.771
 3.  Clivio Piccione   RC Motorsport        2:03.272
 4.  Miguel Molina     Pons Racing          2:06.166
 5.  B. Baguette       KTR                  2:03.727
 6.  G. van der Garde  Victory Engineering  2:06.295
 7.  Davide Valsecchi  Epsilon Euskadi      2:03.750
 8.  Alvaro Parente    Tech 1 Racing        2:06.541
 9.  Salvador Duran    Interwetten.com      2:03.793
10.  Mikhail Aleshin   Carlin Motorsport    2:06.858
11.  F. Albuquerque    Epsilon Euskadi      2:04.054
12.  Ben Hanley        Prema Powerteam      2:07.129
13.  Carlos Iaconelli  Pons Racing          2:04.067
14.  Charlie Kimball   Victory Engineering  2:07.152
15.  Marco Bonanomi    RC Motorsport        2:04.187
16.  James Walker      Fortec Motorsport    2:07.717
17.  Milos Pavlovic    Draco Racing         2:04.590
18.  Alejandro Nunez   Comtec               2:07.717
19.  M. Ammermuller    Carlin Motorsport    2.04:795
20.  Xavier Maassen    Prema Powerteam      2:08.008
21.  P. di Sabatino    GD Racing            2:04.918
22.  Ricardo Risatti   GD Racing            2:08.675
23.  Julien Jousse     Tech 1 Racing        2:05.023
24.  Daniil Move       Interwetten.com      2:14.004
25.  A. Ciompi         Eurointernational    2:05.158
26.  Jaap van Langen   Eurointernational    2:24.457
27.  Pippa Mann        Cram Competition     2:05.158
28.  Michael Herck     Comtec               2:26.406
29.  Richard Philippe  Fortec Motorsport       -
30.  Guillaume Moreau  KTR                     -