FR3.5: Rowland grabs pole before red flag

Title favorite Oliver Rowland claimed his fourth pole position of the season in a somewhat anticlimactic Formula Renault 3.5 qualifying session at the Nurburgring.

A late red flag, caused when Tom Dillmann's Carlin machine stopped at Turn 1, led to the session being curtailed with a little under two minutes left on the clocks. The majority of the field was on track at the time of the stoppage, and left unable to exploit their new tyre runs when qualifying was abandoned.

Cypriot Tio Ellinas may have had particular reason to be upset at the premature ending to the morning's action. The Silverstone winner was 0.339 seconds up on Fortec racer Rowland's benchmark time at the second timing split when the red flags were flown. Strakka driver Ellinas ended the session in third, but will be promoted to the front row for Saturday afternoon's opening race.

McLaren junior driver Nyck de Vries will receive a two-place grid penalty for his part in an accident with Bruno Bonifacio at Silverstone last week, dropping from second to fourth.

Open-wheel veteran Dillmann heads the second row. He was under investigation for causing the stoppage and could have had his fastest lap deleted but stewards decided to take no action.

Rowland's championship rival Matthieu Vaxiviere is set to start from fifth for Lotus Charouz, ahead of Monaco winner Jazeman Jaafar, who will be keen to recapture his early-season form.

Jaafar was one of very few drivers to improve his position on new tyres. The Petronas-backed Malaysian found four tenths to demote Silverstone podium finisher Pietro Fantin to seventh.

Tech 1 driver Roy Nissany also gained ground, creeping into the top 10 at the expense of Pons Racing's debutant Yu Kanamaru.

The weekend's second newcomer, GP2 stalwart Rene Binder, will line up in the penultimate position on the grid in the second Pons entry formerly driven by Manor Formula 1 man Roberto Merhi.

Arden's pairing of Hungaroring winner Egor Orudzhev and Nicholas Latifi struggled on their old tire run in the first half of qualifying, and were left in an atypical 16th and 17th after the stoppage.

QUALIFYING RESULTS:

Originally on Autosport.com