Beijing score the first Superleague pole

Reigning Euro Formula 3000 champion Rigon has been untouchable all weekend and delivered a stunning effort in the final head-to-head one-lap shoot-out against Sevilla's Borja Garcia.

Rigon defeated PSV Eindhoven's Yelmer Buurman in his semi-final, while Garcia knocked out the Olympiacos car of Kasper Anderson in his. Ex-GP2 racer Buurman will start third on the grid thanks to outpacing Anderson throughout qualifying.

Quarter-final losers fill up the next four positions, and will start in the order Robert Doornbos (AC Milan), Enrico Toccacelo (AS Roma), Alessandro Pier Guidi (Galatasaray) and Tottenham's Duncan Tappy.

Sevilla's Garcia had previously come out on top in the first ever Superleague qualifying session, run to a more standard format with half the cars lapping together. He set the pace throughout the Group A contest, but Buurman's PSV machine almost pipped him towards the end of the session.

Anderson and Pier Guidi were the other entries that made it to the next round from the group. Only six of the eight cars scheduled to run made it out as FC Basel's Max Wissel and Liverpool's Adrian Valles remained stranded in the pits after technical problems in practice.

Rigon was in a class of his own in the faster second session, which was contested by nine cars. The Beijing Guoan driver was the only man under the 1:19 barrier and was over half a second ahead of the field until Doornbos recorded 1:19.155 late on in the session.

Toccacelo and the Tottenham Hotspur car of Tappy also made it through, Tappy just scraping in late on to knock out Andi Zuber's Al Ain car by 0.060.

Starting grid

Pos Driver                     Team
 1. Davide Rigon               Beijing Guoan
 2. Borja Garcia               Sevilla FC
 3. Yelmer Buurman             PSV Eindhoven
 4. Kasper Andersen            Olympiacos
 5. Robert Doornbos            AC Milan
 6. Enrico Toccacelo           AS Roma
 7. Alessandro Pier Guidi      Galatasaray
 8. Duncan Tappy               Tottenham Hotspur
 9. Andri Zuber                Al Ain
10. Craig Dolby                Anderlecht
11. Nelson Philippe            Borussia Dortmund
12. Tuka Rocha                 Flamengo
13. Tristan Gommendy           FC Porto
14. Andy Soucek                Corinthians
15. Ryan Dalziel               Rangers
16. Max Wissel                 FC Basel
17. Adrian Valles              Liverpool