Christopher Zanella beats Mihai Marinescu to Formula 2 race two pole at the Nurburgring

With five 'shots' of boost allowed during the half-hour session, unlike Saturday's qualifying where the use of boost was prohibited, it was essentially a one-lap shoot-out among the frontrunners.

Zanella, who was third in Saturday's race, fired to the top of the order with seven minutes remaining, his 1m45.590s comfortably the fastest time seen all weekend. But there was nothing comfortable about his margin for pole, with Romanian driver Marinescu falling just three thousandths short several minutes later.

Young gun Matheo Tuscher finished the session third fastest, having spent almost a minute on top of the times after setting his 1m45.737s best with eight minutes left. He will share the second row with German Markus Pommer, who finally hit his straps after a disappointing day at his home track on Saturday.

Championship leader Luciano Bacheta put in his worst qualifying performance of the year so far, the Briton only able to manage the fifth fastest time, just ahead of Alex Fontana.

David Zhu wound up seventh - a two-place improvement on his Saturday qualifying - ahead of Briton Daniel McKenzie. Kevin Mirocha and Dino Zamparelli rounded out the top 10, with Zamparelli just 0.814s slower than Zanella's pole time.

Pos  Driver                Time       Gap
 1.  Christopher Zanella   1m45.590s
 2.  Mihai Marinescu       1m45.593s  + 0.003s
 3.  Matheo Tuscher        1m45.737s  + 0.147s
 4.  Markus Pommer         1m45.894s  + 0.304s
 5.  Luciano Bacheta       1m45.977s  + 0.387s
 6.  Alex Fontana          1m45.995s  + 0.405s
 7.  David Zhu             1m46.009s  + 0.419s
 8.  Daniel McKenzie       1m46.126s  + 0.536s
 9.  Kevin Mirocha         1m46.338s  + 0.748s
10.  Dino Zamparelli       1m46.404s  + 0.814s
11.  Parthiva Sureshwaren  1m46.637s  + 1.047s
12.  Hector Hurst          1m46.676s  + 1.086s
13.  Mauro Calamia         1m47.118s  + 1.528s
14.  Plamen Kralev         1m47.194s  + 1.604s
15.  Maxim Snegirev        1m47.223s  + 1.633s
16.  Axcil Jefferies       1m47.840s  + 2.250s