Palmer on pole for 200th GP2 race

Series leader Jolyon Palmer will start the 200th race in GP2's history from pole position after topping qualifying at Hockenheim for the DAMS team.

Palmer set pole with his first flying lap in qualifying, a 1m23.383s, and then settled into watching everyone trying to beat it. McLaren junior driver Stoffel Vandoorne came closest, getting to within 0.282sec on his second run for ART, but Palmer claimed the four bonus points for pole and didn't even bother with a second flying lap to save his tires.

Racing Engineering's Stefano Coletti will start third, having been toppled from the front row by Vandoorne in the second half of the session.

Tom Dillmann, who is making his series return with Caterham this weekend in place of the departed Alexander Rossi, will start fourth.

Championship challenger Felipe Nasr was fifth after pushing too hard on his final lap and running wide at Turn 1.

Silverstone poleman Raffaele Marciello should have been higher than eighth, but he twice got balked in the final corners, once by Rio Haryanto and, in the final seconds, by Takuya Izawa.

Rossi, who left Caterham this week to join Campos, will start ninth, ahead of Simon Trummer.

Silverstone winner Mitch Evans, fourth in the points table, could only manage 15th in his Russian Time machine.