Stoffel Vandoorne took his maiden GP2 pole position on home soil

Stoffel Vandoorne took his maiden GP2 pole position at his home circuit of Spa-Francorchamps, narrowly edging out Jolyon Palmer.

The Belgian left it late, but a time of 1:56.839 on his final run was enough to pip the championship leader by just 0.018 seconds and take the four points on offer.

Palmer had looked on course for a comfortable for pole after an opening 1:56.857 gave him an advantage of nearly four tenths of a second over the pack and the Briton had already abandoned his second run on new tyres and pitted before Vandoorne went top.

Nevertheless, the DAMS man still has a fantastic opportunity to extend his lead over Felipe Nasr at the top of the standings after the Carlin driver laboured to the 11th quickest time to leave him with a lot of work to do on Saturday.

Mitch Evans bounced back from a disappointing run of qualifying results to set the third quickest time, two tenths shy of Vandoorne, and he will be joined on the second row of the grid by Raffaele Marciello who used the empty track at the midpoint of the session to his advantage.

The Feature Race follows F1 qualifying on Saturday and you can see all the action live on Sky Sports F1 from 2:35pm.

GP2 Qualifying – Belgium
1) Stoffel Vandoorne (BEL) – ART Grand Prix – 1:56.839
2) Jolyon Palmer (GBR) – DAMS - +0.018
3) Mitch Evans (NZL) – Russian Time - +0.218
4) Raffaele Marciello (ITA) – Racing Engineering - +0.398
5) Johnny Cecotto (VEN) – Trident - +0.405
6) Julian Leal (COL) – Carlin - +0.432
7) Nathanael Berthon (FRA) – Lazarus - +0.433
8) Simon Trummer (SUI) – Rapax - +0.445
9) Marco Sorensen (DEN) – MP Motorsport - +0.550
10) Stephane Richelmi (BRA) – Carlin - +0.636

Selected others
11) Felipe Nasr (BRA) – Carlin - +0.636
16) Stefano Coletti (MON) – Racing Engineering - +1.005
21) Adrian Quaife-Hobbs (GBR) – Rapax - +1.166
23) Jon Lancaster (GBR) – Hilmer Motorsport - +1.379