Palmer leads all-Carlin GP2 front row

Jolyon Palmer will start Saturday's GP2 Series race from pole position after topping a disrupted Singapore qualifying session, ahead of Carlin teammate Felipe Nasr.

In the only night-time running for the series all weekend, Palmer lapped the Marina Bay track in 1m53.600s, just over a quarter of a second faster than Nasr could manage.

Championship leader Fabio Leimer will start third for Racing Engineering. He had provisional pole halfway through the session, but had nothing to respond to the Carlin cars despite a brave late effort.

Although Leimer missed out on the four points for pole, he will be delighted to be seven places ahead of main title rival Sam Bird, who could only manage 10th fastest time in his Russian Time machine.

Bird was plagued by Johnny Cecotto Jr. in his efforts at the end of the session, as the Venezuelan appeared to get in his way on numerous occasions.

The session was disrupted by a number of incidents, the first being Mitch Evans piling into the Tecpro barrier at Turn 10 when he locked up and went off in his Arden car. He will need dispensation to start as he had failed to set a representative lap time.

Just after James Calado clipped a wall, his ART team-mate Daniel Abt stopped trackside with no power. Then series newcomer Gianmarco Raimondo shunted at the Marina Bay grandstand bend, smashing his Trident car's right-front corner against the barrier. That caused a red flag with 14 minutes to go.

After the mayhem was cleared, Alexander Rossi qualified fourth for Caterham, ahead of Stephane Richelmi, Tom Dillmann (who was lucky to rejoin after overshooting a corner), Sergio Canamasas and Calado.

Erstwhile points leader Stefano Coletti, now third in the standings, was 11th fastest.