Dominant Mansell takes pole

The 1992 world champion dominated the session, taking pole halfway through the session and then lowering the bar further by going three tenths of a second quicker on his subsequent run, recording a time of 1:49.926.

With even warmer track conditions than this morning, Mansell did not quite match his lap record from the earlier free practice session, however he was the quickest driver this afternoon by more than three tenths of a second.

The top 11 drivers on the grid are covered by 1.7 seconds around the 5.43km track, marking a much closer qualifying session than in the inaugural race in Kyalami. Then, the same amount of cars were covered by more than two seconds for a much shorter track.

Christian Danner will join Mansell on the front row of the grid for tomorrow's 45-minute race, after setting a lap 0.355 seconds slower than the Briton's. It marks a vast improvement for the former F3000 champion, who only managed seventh on the grid in the inaugural race in Kyalami.

Derek Warwick will start directly behind Mansell, in third. Warwick tried to better his fastest lap of 1:47.342 towards the end of the session, however he was just hundredths of a second off.

Riccardo Patrese will start fourth ahead of countryman Pierluigi Martini, impressing on his GP Masters debut.

Emerson Fittipaldi, who started on the front row with Mansell in Kyalami, qualified sixth. His pace was an improvement on his free practice pace set so far this weekend.

Rene Arnoux set the 14th fastest time of the 15 cars. He suffered a spin mid-session, understeering off at Turn 7 and turning the car on the AstroTurf into the gravel.

The session was briefly interrupted for four minutes by a red flag, for debris out on the circuit.

Pos  Driver        Time
 1.  Mansell       1:46.926
 2.  Danner        1:47.281 + 0.355
 3.  Warwick       1:47.342 + 0.416
 4.  Patrese       1:47.445 + 0.519
 5.  Martini       1:47.717 + 0.791
 6.  Fittipaldi    1:47.822 + 0.896
 7.  Cheever       1:47.894 + 0.968
 8.  Johansson     1:48.208 + 1.282
 9.  De Cesaris    1:48.343 + 1.417
10.  Stuck         1:48.423 + 1.497
11.  Van De Poele  1:48.711 + 1.785
12.  Salazar       1:49.832 + 2.906
13.  Lammers       1:49.920 + 2.994
14.  Arnoux        1:50.514 + 3.588
15.  Tambay        1:50.516 + 3.590