Spa GP2: Vandoorne hangs on for home pole position

McLaren protégé Stoffel Vandoorne survived a flurry of late improvements by his rivals in a frantic qualifying session to take pole position for his home GP2 round at Spa.

The Belgian proved the driver to beat during the initial runs, his first flying lap of 1m56.518s putting him a comfortable four tenths faster than his closest rival, Oliver Rowland.

Vandoorne then took advantage of a clear track in the traditional mid-session lull - a tactic used to great effect at Hungary by Alex Lynn - to lower the benchmark by another 0.240s with a searing effort of 1m56.278s before heading back to the pits.

The championship leader then faced a nervous wait as his rivals tried to dislodge him from the top spot in the final five minutes, but nobody was able to beat Vandoorne's time, the ART driver securing a fourth pole of the season.

It was Rowland once more who provided the sternest challenge, the Formula Renault 3.5 championship leader taking a front row spot in only his second GP2 weekend with a time 0.147s adrift of Vandoorne.

That demoted Sergey Sirotkin to third place, 0.235s off the pace, ahead of Jordan King and Hungary sprint race winner Nobuharu Matsushita.

Second in practice, Mitch Evans could do no better than sixth in qualifying, two thousandths slower than Matsushita, ahead of Pierre Gasly and Alexander Rossi.

Hungary polesitter Lynn was visibly frustrated to only qualify ninth, seven tenths off the pace, while Norman Nato completed the top 10.

Qualifying results:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Stoffel Vandoorne	ART Grand Prix	1'56.278
2	Oliver Rowland	MP Motorsport	1'56.425	0.147
3	Sergey Sirotkin	Rapax	1'56.513	0.235
4	Jordan King	Racing Engineering	1'56.625	0.347
5	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	1'56.659	0.381
6	Mitch Evans	RUSSIAN TIME	1'56.661	0.383
7	Pierre Gasly	DAMS	1'56.701	0.423
8	Alexander Rossi	Racing Engineering	1'56.845	0.567
9	Alex Lynn	DAMS	1'56.985	0.707
10	Norman Nato	Arden International	1'57.019	0.741
11	Rio Haryanto	Campos Racing	1'57.143	0.865
12	Raffaele Marciello	Trident	1'57.218	0.940
13	Robert Visoiu	Rapax	1'57.273	0.995
14	Arthur Pic	Campos Racing	1'57.275	0.997
15	Nick Yelloly	Hilmer Motorsport	1'57.328	1.050
16	Julian Leal	Carlin	1'57.440	1.162
17	Richie Stanaway	Status Grand Prix	1'57.528	1.250
18	Sergio Canamasas	Daiko Team Lazarus	1'57.560	1.282
19	Nathanael Berthon	Daiko Team Lazarus	1'57.615	1.337
20	Andre Negrao	Arden International	1'57.661	1.383
21	Daniel de Jong	MP Motorsport	1'57.746	1.468
22	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	1'57.809	1.531
23	Marlon Stockinger	Status Grand Prix	1'58.136	1.858
24	Gustav Malja	Trident	1'58.371	2.093
25	Sean Gelael	Carlin	1'58.402	2.124