Jules Bianchi made the perfect start to this weekend’s Formula Renault 3.5 title decider, taking pole for race one in an incident-packed qualifying session.
The Ferrari junior driver, who took the lead of the standings from Robin Frijns last time out at Paul Ricard, kept his composure in a session punctuated by red flags and full course yellows to always be near the top of the times.
After an early delay caused by Yann Cunha’s car stopping just after the pit exit, Bianchi went fastest as everyone finally set their first flying laps seven minutes in.
The session was stopped shortly after that when his Tech 1 team-mate Daniel Abt spun. After that, Bianchi and title outsider Sam Bird joined the majority of the field in waiting to put a second set of tyres on rather than heading back out on their first sets.
Frijns, however, was one of the few to use his first set of tyres again, and with clear track he duly moved into provisional pole at the halfway stage of the session.
Another red flag – this time caused by Nikolay Martsenko crashing at Turn 3 – delayed the rush out of the pits when everyone was switching to their second sets. Kevin Magnussen briefly went fastest when the action re-started, but Bianchi responded seconds later to re-take top spot.
Andre Negrao was next to cause a red flag, setting up a three-minute shootout for pole. However, there were very few improvements, with the main drama coming as Frijns spun at Turn 12 on a lap that was unlikely to improve his position.
Prior to that, the Dutchman had moved up one place to sixth, but that still left him the lowest of the three title chasers. Bianchi was unchallenged for pole, while Bird kept his nose out of trouble to take fourth.
Magnussen had to make do with third thanks to a late improvement from Antonio Felix da Costa, while the Red Bull junior’s Arden Caterham team-mate Alexander Rossi completed the top five.
Emmanuel de Graffenried Lucas di Grassi Cecil Green Keith Greene
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