Hegewald claims pole at Donington

The German, who scored two wins from two poles at Spa-Francorchamps in June, posted a lap three tenths of a second quicker than anyone else in this afternoon's first qualifying session to clinch the top spot by a comfortable margin.

"Pole position is always important in every series, but nothing is won yet," said Hegewald. "There is still another qualifying to go today yet. I really like the circuit here, it's very fast and that suits me well."

Behind Hegewald, Mikhail Aleshin edged out championship leader Andy Soucek to earn a place on the front row by just eight thousandths of a second, while Soucek was just a couple of hundredths ahead of fourth-placed Julien Jousse.

Milos Pavlovic and Edoardo Piscopo completed the top six, with Kazim Vasiliauskas, Sebastian Hohenthal, Robert Wickens and Philipp Eng rounding out the top 10.

There were no major incidents in the session, although it was red-flagged a minute short of the half hour after Jack Clarke went off and Robert Wickens stopped his car on the Melbourne loop.

Pos Driver                  Time           Gap
 1. Tobias Hegewald         1m23.116s
 2. Mikhail Aleshin         1m23.429s   +0.313
 3. Andy Soucek             1m23.437s   +0.321
 4. Julien Jousse           1m23.460s   +0.344
 5. Milos Pavlovic          1m23.542s   +0.426
 6. Edoardo Piscopo         1m23.623s   +0.507
 7. Kazim Vasiliauskas      1m23.699s   +0.583
 8. Sebastian Hohenthal     1m23.702s   +0.586
 9. Robert Wickens          1m23.828s   +0.712
10. Philipp Eng             1m23.939s   +0.823
11. Mirko Bortolotti        1m24.029s   +0.913
12. Armaan Ebrahim          1m24.244s   +1.128
13. Jack Clarke             1m24.275s   +1.159
14. Jason Moore             1m24.339s   +1.223
15. German Sanchez          1m24.368s   +1.252
16. Jolyon Palmer           1m24.391s   +1.275
17. Carlos Iaconelli        1m24.413s   +1.297
18. Alex Brundle            1m24.435s   +1.319
19. Natacha Gachnang        1m24.472s   +1.356
20. Tom Gladdis             1m24.515s   +1.399
21. Nicola de Marco         1m24.674s   +1.558
22. Henri Karjalainen       1m24.720s   +1.604
23. Pietro Gandolfi         1m26.888s   +3.772
24. Jens Hoing              1m38.770s  +15.654