Kirchhofer takes first GP3 pole

Marvin Kirchhofer grabbed pole position for round seven of the GP3 Series at Hockenheim for ART Grand Prix.

In a thrilling session, where the top spot was in doubt until the very end, points leader Alex Lynn was toppled in the closing seconds by Kirchhofer's lap of 1m28.647s to ensure that German GP Saturday started well for the home fans. Lynn's best effort was 1m28.706s, and he missed out on the points for pole by just 0.059sec in his Carlin machine.

Nick Yelloly will start third for Status GP as he continues to search for his first victory of 2014. Lynn's teammate Emil Bernstorff qualified fourth to make it three Britons in the top four.

Lynn's title rival Jimmy Eriksson was fifth fastest for Koiranen GP, but was three tenths off the quickest time. Eriksson is carrying a five-place grid penalty after the Silverstone round.

Mitch Gilbert's second-ever GP3 qualifying session ended much more satisfactorily than his first at Silverstone, where he backflipped at high speed, and he qualified sixth, just ahead of Dino Zamparelli and Silverstone winner Richie Stanaway.

Matheo Tuscher and Dean Stoneman round out the top 10.