By alley - Jun 12, 2015, 4:01 AM ET

FR3.5: Rowland beats Orudzhev to pole

Championship leader Oliver Rowland claimed pole position for the opening Formula Renault 3.5 race at the Hungaroring.

The result follows the Fortec racer's pole at the preceding meeting at Spa-Francorchamps a fortnight ago.

The Briton's two closest pursuers in the title race, Matthieu Vaxiviere and Jazeman Jaafar, will also be in contention for victory in Saturday afternoon's race, and will head the second row of the grid.

Both were overshadowed by the surprise of qualifying, Arden racer Egor Orudzhev.

The SMP-backed Russian was a consistent presence towards the top of the timing screens, and held provisional pole with just a minute of the half-hour session remaining.

Rowland's late effort of 1m28.897s would deny Orudzhev a maiden pole position by 0.210 seconds.

GP2 race-winner Tom Dillmann recovered from a lowly 16th mid-way through the session to claim fifth for Carlin, ahead of Manor Formula 1 driver Roberto Merhi.

The Spaniard was

a dominant victor in the wet

for Zeta Corse in Hungary last year, but this top-six starting position is the first real sign of progress for the Merhi/Pons combination in 2015.

Gustav Malja's Strakka car stopped at Turn 13 early in the session and the Swede is set to start from last.

Meindert van Buuren, whose regular seat at Lotus was taken by European Formula 3 driver Alexander Albon

on Friday

, returned and claimed 14th.

QUALIFYING RESULTS:

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Oliver Rowland	Fortec Motorsports	1m28.867ss	1m28.867s
2	Egor Orudzhev	Arden Motorsport	1m29.077ss	0.210s
3	Matthieu Vaxiviere	Lotus	1m29.160ss	0.293s
4	Jazeman Jaafar	Fortec Motorsports	1m29.218ss	0.351s
5	Tom Dillmann	Jagonya Ayam with Carlin	1m29.242ss	0.375s
6	Roberto Merhi	Pons Racing	1m29.371ss	0.504s
7	Nicholas Latifi	Arden Motorsport	1m29.399ss	0.532s
8	Pietro Fantin	International Draco Racing	1m29.461ss	0.594s
9	Aurelien Panis	Tech 1 Racing	1m29.542ss	0.675s
10	Tio Ellinas	Strakka Racing	1m29.778ss	0.911s
11	Dean Stoneman	DAMS	1m29.789ss	0.922s
12	Philo Paz Armand	Pons Racing	1m29.827ss	0.960s
13	Beitske Visser	AVF	1m29.901ss	1.034s
14	Meindert van Buuren	Lotus	1m29.928ss	1.061s
15	Sean Gelael	Jagonya Ayam with Carlin	1m30.021ss	1.154s
16	Roy Nissany	Tech 1 Racing	1m30.036ss	1.169s
17	Bruno Bonifacio	International Draco Racing	1m30.172ss	1.305s
18	Nyck de Vries	DAMS	1m30.176ss	1.309s
19	Alfonso Celis	AVF	1m30.313ss	1.446s
-	Gustav Malja	Strakka Racing	1m46.010ss	17.143s