Monras grabs F2 race two pole

The GP3 convert's top spot came courtesy of a 1m49.934s lap - the fastest of the weekend so far - with two minutes of the half-hour session remaining and gave him the first F2 pole for a Spaniard since Andy Soucek at Oschersleben in 2009.

With drivers able to use boost in the session (unlike in Q1), times were around a second quicker than they had been 24 hours earlier.

For most of the session it appeared that pole would go to Mirko Bortolotti for the second race in succession. The championship leader was the first man to dip below the 1m51s barrier, lapping initially in the 1m50.7s bracket before bringing his time down to 1m50.137s, aided by a maximum three bursts of boost on his hot lap.

The Italian, who completed just five laps during the session, was in the pits and out of his car by the midway point of the session, but Monras surprised him by leaping to pole by 0.203s with a flying lap just two minutes from the end of qualifying.

Alex Brundle was also in contention for pole, the Briton setting the fastest first and second split times of the session, but losing out in the final sector when he came across backmarker Parthiva Sureshwaren, who was on an out-lap. Third still represented the best grid spot of Brundle's F2 career.

Will Bratt languished towards the tail end of the top 10 for most of the session, but put in a strong lap with three minutes left to pull himself up to fourth on the grid, ahead of Ramon Pineiro and Tobias Hegewald, whose late effort moved him up from 23rd.

Jack Clarke, Armaan Ebrahim, Mihai Marinescu and Christopher Zanella completed the top 10.

Pos  Driver                Time       Gap
 1.  Miki Monras           1m49.934s
 2.  Mirko Bortolotti      1m50.137s  + 0.203s
 3.  Alex Brundle          1m50.290s  + 0.356s
 4.  Will Bratt            1m50.512s  + 0.578s
 5.  Ramon Pineiro         1m50.810s  + 0.876s
 6.  Tobias Hegewald       1m50.836s  + 0.902s
 7.  Jack Clarke           1m50.876s  + 0.942s
 8.  Armaan Ebrahim        1m50.902s  + 0.968s
 9.  Mihai Marinescu       1m51.026s  + 1.092s
10.  Christopher Zanella   1m51.147s  + 1.213s
11.  Thiemo Storz          1m51.466s  + 1.532s
12.  Mikkel Mac            1m51.653s  + 1.719s
13.  Kelvin Snoeks         1m51.704s  + 1.770s
14.  Plamen Kralev         1m51.726s  + 1.792s
15.  Johannes Theobald     1m51.829s  + 1.895s
16.  Maxim Snegirev        1m51.864s  + 1.930s
17.  Benjamin Lariche      1m51.944s  + 2.010s
18.  Natalia Kowalska      1m52.012s  + 2.078s
19.  Tom Gladdis           1m52.019s  + 2.085s
20.  Julian Theobald       1m52.168s  + 2.234s
21.  James Cole            1m52.191s  + 2.257s
22.  Parthiva Sureshwaren  1m52.262s  + 2.328s
23.  Jose Luis Abadin      1m52.487s  + 2.553s
24.  Sung-Hak Mun          1m53.026s  + 3.092s