P1 pair top qualifying at Aragon

Vying for the runner-up spot in the championship, Walker set the A group session's quickest lap with 1m44.201s. Walker's Russian team-mate Daniil Move headed the later B group, which was closely-fought, if marginally slower.

Walker was in control of the A group throughout. Halfway through the 15-minute session, the Jersey driver held a clear advantage, with Mofaz Racing's Fairuz Fauzy the only other driver able to join him under the 1m46s barrier.

With a third of the session left to run, former championship leader Marcos Martinez mounted fresh rubber and briefly secured the top spot, but after trading positions with Walker the Spaniard slipped to an eventual fifth place.

Competitive throughout Friday practice, Epsilon Euskadi's Chris van Drift made a last- ditch effort after the appearance of the chequered flag to claim second, just over a tenth adrift of Walker's benchmark.

A scant 0.065s covered the third to sixth placed drivers. Newly-crowned champion Bertrand Baguette held off fourth placed Fauzy by 0.024s while Jon Lancaster rounded out the six to progress into Superpole from the A group.

Newcomer Esteban Guerrieri failed to make the cut on his return to the championship, but the Argentine, who could only manage eighth, will be more concerned about the welfare of one of his RC Motorsport team's mechanics who sustained an injury to his hand in a pitlane incident.

Brendon Hartley set the early pace in the B group, ahead of Oliver Turvey, before the mass pitstops for fresh rubber a third of the way in. The action built to an exciting climax, with just 0.044s covering the first four cars.

Turvey sat at the top of the timesheets with one minute left on the clocks, only for his Carlin team-mate Jaime Alguersuari to find an extra three thousandths and move into P1.

Alguersuari was, in turn, pipped at the end by Hartley. The final say though, went to Move, who improved on the Kiwi's time by four thousandths of a second.

Good performances were produced by Comtec's Greg Mansell, who returned to the category for the first time since parting ways with Ultimate Motorsport in August, and Italian Federico Leo, both of whom progressed into Superpole.

Qualifying group 1:

Pos  Driver               Team             Time       Gap
 1.  James Walker         P1               1m44.201s
 2.  Chris van der Drift  Epsilon Euskadi  1m44.328s  + 0.127s
 3.  Bertrand Baguette    Draco            1m44.423s  + 0.222s
 4.  Fairuz Fauzy         Mofaz            1m44.447s  + 0.246s
 5.  Marcos Martinez      Pons             1m44.480s  + 0.279s
 6.  Jon Lancaster        Comtec           1m44.488s  + 0.287s
 7.  Sten Pentus          Mofaz            1m44.614s  + 0.413s
 8.  Esteban Guerrieri    RC               1m44.701s  + 0.500s
 9.  Filip Salaquarda     Prema            1m45.637s  + 1.436s
10.  Julian Leal          Prema            1m45.649s  + 1.448s
11.  Keisuke Kunimoto     Epsilon Euskadi  1m45.659s  + 1.458s
12.  Mihai Marinescu      Interwetten      1m46.413s  + 2.212s

Qualifying group 2:

Pos  Driver               Team             Time       Gap
 1.  Daniil Move          P1               1m44.615s
 2.  Brendon Hartley      Tech 1           1m44.619s  + 0.004s
 3.  Jaime Alguersuari    Carlin           1m44.656s  + 0.041s
 4.  Oliver Turvey        Carlin           1m44.659s  + 0.044s
 5.  Greg Mansell         Comtec           1m44.714s  + 0.099s
 6.  Federico Leo         Pons             1m44.907s  + 0.292s
 7.  Guillaume Moreau     SG               1m45.074s  + 0.459s
 8.  Marco Barba          Draco            1m45.158s  + 0.543s
 9.  Anton Nebylitskiy    SG               1m45.238s  + 0.623s
10.  Charles Pic          Tech 1           1m45.324s  + 0.709s
11.  Salvador Duran       Interwetten      1m46.163s  + 1.548s
12.  Bruno Mendez         RC               1m46.938s  + 2.323s