GP2: Red Bull's Gasly takes another pole at Sepang

GP2 championship leader Pierre Gasly claimed pole position at Sepang in another all-Prema battle in qualifying with teammate and title rival Antonio Giovinazzi.

Red Bull Formula 1 junior Gasly was fastest by three tenths of a second over Giovinazzi after the first runs, only to then spin at Turn 12 on his next attempt. Giovinazzi improved on his second effort to cut the gap to 0.082 seconds, and that was how the top of the times remained through a disrupted end to the session.

No driver managed to post a time on their second run before Mitch Evans spun into the barriers at the first corner, reporting a brake failure. That triggered a red flag with three and a half minutes left on the clock, and when the session resumed drivers only had time for one warm-up lap rather than the preferred two.

Any chances for the most to improve their times then evaporated completely when Honda protege Nobuharu Matsushita spun at Turn 14, bringing out the yellow flags.

Giovinazzi had been on a competitive lap but backed out in the incident zone and had to settle for second behind Gasly, who secured his seventh GP2 pole.

Ex-Prema Formula 3 racer Raffaele Marciello was the best driver from outside of the Italian team in third for Russian Time, 0.345s off pole, ahead of ART drivers Sergey Sirotkin and Matsushita.

Alex Lynn appeared on course to improve from sixth place at the end before losing time in the middle sector.

Racing Engineering teammates Norman Nato and Jordan King will share the fourth row of the grid, with Oliver Rowland and Artem Markelov rounding out the top 10.

QUALIFYING RESULTS:

Originally on Autosport.com