Red Bull junior Pierre Gasly took his third GP2 pole position in four races in Abu Dhabi, after a tight battle with McLaren protege Stoffel Vandoorne.
As he did in practice, Gasly set the pace on his opening lap and stayed at the top throughout.
He was pushed all the way by a determined Vandoorne, who made an uncharacteristic lockup at Turn 1 on his opening run to leave him slowest overall.
The Belgian soon corrected his error and moved up to second on the following lap, 0.277 seconds off the pace of Gasly.
Following a mid-session tyre and set-up change, the field headed back out on track, with Williams Formula 1 development driver Alex Lynn leading the way.
With a clear track Lynn was able to go within 0.035s of his DAMS team-mate.
Gasly was on a faster lap, though, and, despite running wide at the penultimate corner, he was able to improve with a time of 1m47.769s.
Vandoorne set personal bests through every sector but he still couldn’t knock Gasly off top spot and had to settle for second, just 0.097s adrift of the polesitter.
Russian Time’s Mitch Evans was the only late improver, demoting Lynn from third place on his final run.
Ferrari junior Raffaele Marciello was six tenths off the pace of Gasly, but was able to edge out Campos Racing’s Rio Haryanto by just 0.010s for fifth.
Racing Engineering team-mates Alexander Rossi and Jordan King will line up seventh and eighth, with Nobuharu Matsushita and Artem Markelov, who ran alone on track for several laps, rounding out the top 10.
QUALIFYING RESULT
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pierre Gasly | DAMS | 1m47.769s | – |
| 2 | Stoffel Vandoorne | ART Grand Prix | 1m47.866s | 0.097s |
| 3 | Mitch Evans | RUSSIAN TIME | 1m48.014s | 0.245s |
| 4 | Alex Lynn | DAMS | 1m48.049s | 0.280s |
| 5 | Raffaele Marciello | Trident | 1m48.419s | 0.650s |
| 6 | Rio Haryanto | Campos Racing | 1m48.429s | 0.660s |
| 7 | Alexander Rossi | Racing Engineering | 1m48.598s | 0.829s |
| 8 | Jordan King | Racing Engineering | 1m48.632s | 0.863s |
| 9 | Nobuharu Matsushita | ART Grand Prix | 1m48.699s | 0.930s |
| 10 | Artem Markelov | RUSSIAN TIME | 1m48.743s | 0.974s |
| 11 | Andre Negrao | Arden International | 1m48.822s | 1.053s |
| 12 | Sergey Sirotkin | Rapax | 1m48.981s | 1.212s |
| 13 | Norman Nato | Arden International | 1m49.105s | 1.336s |
| 14 | Arthur Pic | Campos Racing | 1m49.110s | 1.341s |
| 15 | Sergio Canamasas | Daiko Team Lazarus | 1m49.146s | 1.377s |
| 16 | Dean Stoneman | Carlin | 1m49.166s | 1.397s |
| 17 | Nicholas Latifi | MP Motorsport | 1m49.350s | 1.581s |
| 18 | Oliver Rowland | Status Grand Prix | 1m49.374s | 1.605s |
| 19 | Rene Binder | MP Motorsport | 1m49.661s | 1.892s |
| 20 | Daniel de Jong | Trident | 1m49.727s | 1.958s |
| 21 | Nathanael Berthon | Daiko Team Lazarus | 1m49.779s | 2.010s |
| 22 | Marlon Stockinger | Status Grand Prix | 1m49.839s | 2.070s |
| 23 | Gustav Malja | Rapax | 1m50.543s | 2.774s |
| 24 | Sean Gelael | Carlin | 1m51.604s | 3.835s |
