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Stoneman dominates Zolder qualifying

Dean Stoneman took his second Formula 2 pole position of the season by dominating this afternoon's qualifying session at Zolder

The Briton, who has a 100 per cent winning record from pole position following his triumph in Marrakech last month, sat above his rivals throughout the half-hour session.

Before the habitual mid-session change to a new set of tyres, Stoneman was as much as seven tenths clear of the field.

The gap was reduced to just over one tenth by local driver Benjamin Bailly, before Stoneman unleashed the fastest lap of the week so far to cement his top spot by quarter of a second.

Bailly was knocked off the front row by a late effort from Kazim Vasiliauskas, whose previous best was just 0.001s slower than the Belgian.

Armaan Ebrahim will join Bailly on row two for Saturday's race after his strongest qualifying showing of the year.

Bailly, who is from just 50km south of the Zolder but is racing at his home circuit for the first time, said: "I feel great, to get my best result here at Zolder feels really good. I would prefer to be in first or second, but third is not bad.

"I have driven only one time here with a road car. It was good to have the test on Tuesday, there's a lot of grip on the track and it's really good fun."

Jolyon Palmer and Nicola de Marco will share the third row, ahead of Ivan Samarin in a season's best seventh.

Title contender Philipp Eng will be disappointed with eighth - especially after topping the pre-event test here on Tuesday - as will Will Bratt, Jack Clarke and Sergei Afanasiev from ninth through 11th.

Pos  Driver                Time       Gap
 1.  Dean Stoneman         1m23.200s
 2.  Kazim Vasiliauskas    1m23.443s  + 0.243s
 3.  Benjamin Bailly       1m23.538s  + 0.338s
 4.  Armaan Ebrahim        1m23.718s  + 0.518s
 5.  Jolyon Palmer         1m23.829s  + 0.629s
 6.  Nicola de Marco       1m23.914s  + 0.714s
 7.  Ivan Samarin          1m24.048s  + 0.848s
 8.  Philipp Eng           1m24.135s  + 0.935s
 9.  Will Bratt            1m24.196s  + 0.996s
10.  Jack Clarke           1m24.207s  + 1.007s
11.  Sergei Afanasiev      1m24.225s  + 1.025s
12.  Mihai Marinescu       1m24.407s  + 1.207s
13.  Kelvin Snoeks         1m24.562s  + 1.362s
14.  Paul Rees             1m24.573s  + 1.373s
15.  Natalia Kowalska      1m24.730s  + 1.530s
16.  Benjamin Lariche      1m24.884s  + 1.684s
17.  Ricardo Teixeira      1m25.026s  + 1.826s
18.  Parthiva Sureshwaren  1m25.062s  + 1.862s
19.  Plamen Kralev         1m25.990s  + 2.790s

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