By Charles Bradley | Friday, November 1st 2013, 15:57 GMT |
Marcus Ericsson will start the final feature race of the 2013 GP2 season from pole position in Abu Dhabi.
DAMS driver Ericsson set his third pole of the year with a 1m48.924s lap of the Yas Marina circuit, pipping early pacesetter Alexander Rossi of Caterham by 0.007s.
Title contender Sam Bird will start third, with points leader Fabio Leimer two places further back.
With neither Bird nor Leimer claiming the four points for pole, Bird remains seven points in arrears to Leimer with the number now available dropping to 44.
Rossi set the pace from the start of the session during the first runs, taking provisional pole with 1m49.675s then topping that with a 1m49.276s as the super-soft tyre proved good for two flying laps.
The session required a red flag with six minutes to go, just as the cars were starting their final runs, as the left-rear wheelnut came off Daniel Abt's ART car, soon followed by the wheel itself.
At that point, Rossi led the way from Jolyon Palmer (Carlin), Leimer and Bird. The other title contenders, Felipe Nasr and Stefano Coletti, were clearly struggling in 13th and 20th respectively.
As the frantic final minutes unravelled, and track conditions got faster, Ericsson set his pole lap on his first flyer, with Rossi getting to within seven-hundredths on his second lap.
Bird improved to 1m49.241s, over a tenth clear of Palmer, who had set the fastest first sector of all before he went off during his final effort.
Leimer got stuck in traffic and had to abort one lap, and only improved on his earlier effort by a fraction to qualify fifth.
Bird's Russian Time team-mate Tom Dillmann will start alongside Leimer's Racing Engineering machine, ahead of Johnny Cecotto Jr, Jon Lancaster, Nasr and Stephane Richelmi.
Coletti, whose season has been in freefall for the last nine races, qualified 18th.