Rosenqvist secures pole for Hockenheim opener

The Swede's best time of 1m32.455s came in the final moments of qualifying, breaking the previous benchmark established by home driver Maximilian Gunther by 0.154s.

Gunther had seized the top spot shortly after a brief mid-session red flag caused by Alex Albon ending up in the gravel, but was demoted to third as Giovinazzi came within 0.014s of Rosenqvist in the dying stages - and was denied the opportunity to further improve by another red flag brought out by Tatiana Calderon.

Fresh from his first F3 win at Silverstone, Charles Leclerc had gone quickest in the first part of the session, only for his time to be deleted. The Monegasque hauled himself back up to fourth late on, just under four tenths adrift of Rosenqvist, ahead of Ferrari junior Lance Stroll and early pacesetter Jake Dennis.

Brandon Maisano qualified seventh, while BRDC F4 graduate Raoul Hyman, Red Bull youngster Callum Ilott and German F3 champion Markus Pommer completed the top 10. George Russell meanwhile will line up down in 20th for the first race, the Brit ending up just over a second off the pace.

Marvin Kirchhofer meanwhile did not participate in the session after announcing his withdrawal from the series in order to focus on his GP3 commitments.

Qualifying results:

Pos	Driver	Time/Gap
1	Felix Rosenqvist	1m32.455
2	Antonio Giovinazzi	0.014
3	Maximilian Gunther	0.154
4	Charles Leclerc	0.390
5	Lance Stroll	0.461
6	Jake Dennis	0.505
7	Brandon Maisano	0.542
8	Raoul Hyman	0.582
9	Callum Ilott	0.647
10	Markus Pommer	0.678
11	Sergio Sette Camara	0.703
12	Gustavo Menezes	0.732
13	Arjun Maini	0.763
14	Mikkel Jensen	0.826
15	Sam MacLeod	0.828
16	Santino Ferrucci	0.954
17	Michele Beretta	0.971
18	Nicolas Beer	0.980
19	Ryan Tveter	1.000
20	George Russell	1.008
21	Julio Moreno	1.062
22	Matthew Solomon	1.188
23	Alessio Lorandi	1.240
24	Pietro Fittipaldi	1.361
25	Dorian Boccolacci	1.380
26	Nabil Jeffri	1.446
27	Fabian Schiller	1.579
28	Tatiana Calderon	1.715
29	Matt Rao	1.759
30	Martin Cao	1.783
31	Kang Ling	1.863
32	Mahaveer Raghunathan	2.096
33	Zhi Cong Li	2.474
34	Nicolas Pohler	2.969
35	Alexander Albon	9.238