Maiden pole for Bailly on home soil

The 20-year-old, from just 50km south of the Belgian circuit, was already having the best weekend of his season so far after topping Friday practice and qualifying third on Saturday.

This morning, he was last in a string of five drivers to snatch the top spot with their all-important boost-assisted qualifying laps at the end of the half-hour session.

After the half-time switch to new rubber, Jack Clarke was first to set a really quick time. Then Philipp Eng, Sergei Afanasiev and Jolyon Palmer each bettered the benchmark time, before Bailly posted his 1m22.353s.

"I wished I could do pole yesterday, so it's a really great feeling to do it today, at home in front of everybody," said Bailly. "It was a good lap, I could feel it was clear without mistakes. Maybe it was not perfect, but still really good."

Clarke responded with his boosts to join Bailly on the front row, while Will Bratt jumped to fourth with his last effort. Just 0.168s covered the top five cars by the end.

Nicola de Marco and Dean Stoneman took sixth and seventh, leaving one-time provisional pole-sitter Eng down in eighth after he spun off at Turn 2 with four minutes to go.

Eng's spin and the resulting yellow flags deprived several drivers of their opportunity to use their boosts, including Mihai Marinescu and Kazim Vasiliauskas, who completed the top 10.

Pos Driver                     Time       Gap    Laps
 1. Benjamin Bailly            1m22.353s           14
 2. Jack Clarke                1m22.394s  +0.041   14
 3. Jolyon Palmer              1m22.444s  +0.091   14
 4. Will Bratt                 1m22.504s  +0.151   18
 5. Sergei Afanasiev           1m22.521s  +0.168   13
 6. Nicola de Marco            1m22.567s  +0.214   14
 7. Dean Stoneman              1m22.731s  +0.378   15
 8. Philipp Eng                1m22.836s  +0.483   14
 9. Mihai Marinescu            1m23.236s  +0.883   14
10. Kazim Vasiliauskas         1m23.276s  +0.923   15
11. Ivan Samarin               1m23.490s  +1.137   13
12. Kelvin Snoeks              1m23.516s  +1.163   16
13. Benjamin Lariche           1m23.548s  +1.195   13
14. Paul Rees                  1m24.085s  +1.732   16
15. Armaan Ebrahim             1m24.136s  +1.783   16
16. Plamen Kralev              1m24.269s  +1.916   14
17. Natalia Kowalska           1m24.282s  +1.929   12
18. Parthiva Sureshwaren       1m24.686s  +2.333   17
19. Ricardo Teixeira           1m24.967s  +2.614   16