Van der Garde on Nurburging pole

The pole is van der Garde's first since the opening round at Monza, and stretches the P1 Motorsport man's already handsome lead in the title race.

In the Super Pole session, best of the rest behind van der Garde was won by Salvador Duran. The Mexican will start on the front row of tomorrow's feature race after setting a lap just a tenth behind the dominant pole-sitter.

The result is an upturn in fortunes for Duran after the Interwetten.com driver suffered a number of mechanical set-backs in practice.

"The programme we were running since we got here was one that no one wants to run; one of failures," said Duran. "Yesterday morning we had gearbox problems, so I could only do a couple of laps.

"From that situation, we ended this morning's qualifying in a position where I was through into the Super Pole with two sets of new tyres and feeling pretty happy with the car. We only made a small change on the setup from qualifying to the Super Pole and we nearly got pole."

Prema took control of the second row for tomorrow's race. Alvaro Barba edged out Miguel Molina in the in-house battle, and was the only driver other than van der Garde and Duran to lap beneath the 1:45s.

Marco Bonanomi briefly held second spot for Comtec, before dropping to fifth. The Italian had sat out the opening half of the fifteen minute session conserving tyres.

A spin at the Ford Kurve with three minutes remaining put paid to the Lecco driver's hopes of a front row start, and Bonanomi slipped down the order.

Van der Garde's nearest challenger in the championship, Julien Jousse, was sixth. The Frenchman's deficit in the standings has widened to 55 points, owing to the four points awarded to the pole winner.

Fabio Carbone's seventh place for Ultimate-Signature guarantees the Brazilian a place on the outside of the front row of today's 23 lap reverse grid race.

Malaysian Fairuz Fauzy will start from "pole" today thanks to his eighth place, bolstering his chances of adding to the podium that he scored earlier in the season at Monaco.

Pos  Driver               Team                        Time
 1.  Giedo Van Der Garde  P1 Motorsport               1:44.841
 2.  Salvador Duran       Interwetten.Com Racing      1:44.910 + 0.069
 3.  Alvaro Barba         Prema Powerteam             1:44.998 + 0.157
 4.  Miguel Molina        Prema Powerteam             1:45.001 + 0.160
 5.  Marco Bonanomi       Red Devil Team Comtec       1:45.112 + 0.271
 6.  Julien Jousse        Tech 1 Racing               1:45.167 + 0.326
 7.  Fabio Carbone        Ultimate-Signature          1:45.305 + 0.464
 8.  Fairuz Fauzy         Fortec Motorsport           1:45.343 + 0.502
 9.  Mikhail Aleshin      Carlin Motorsport           1:45.350 + 0.509
10.  Marco Barba          International Draco Racing  1:45.352 + 0.511
11.  Aleix Alcaraz        Pons Racing                 1:45.427 + 0.586
12.  Charles Pic          Tech 1 Racing               1:46.019 + 1.178