» GP2: Cecotto claims thrilling pole in Austria

Johnny Cecotto has claimed an exciting pole position at the Red Bull Ring, just narrowly edging out Jolyon Palmer and Felipe Nasr by under 0.05 seconds.

A super competitive qualifying session saw provisional pole change hands between at least six drivers and the top 10 covered by 0.35 seconds.

The gap between pole position and 26^th was just 1.3 seconds, proving just how tense the 30 minutes was.

The entire field bar the Russian Time drivers went out almost immediately to find track position, all aiming to set their lap times quick in case the rain that had been threatening the circuit the past couple of hours decided to drop.

Right at the end of the teams’ first run Felipe Nasr was on track to take provisional pole away from Cecotto when he got it wrong and ran wide on the final corner.

It seemed that in the final stages any driver could have taken pole position, as every lap someone was posting a purple sector.

Although no one was able to put the perfect lap together, Raffaele Marciello came closest after the chequered flag had fallen.

He was on target to beat Cecotto’s time when on the penultimate corner he ran slightly wide and compromised his lap. Whether he made a mistake or the traffic of a close by Caterham was the cause is currently unknown, however it cost him and he will now start fifth on the grid.

Stoffel Vandoorne looks set to end ART’s drought of points providing he stays out of trouble, he qualified in sixth position ahead of Arthur Pic, Mitch Evans and Alexander Rossi.

2014 GP2 Series Race of Austria – Qualifying Results:

	Driver	Team / Entry	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Johnny Cecotto Jr	Trident Racing	1:15.312		17
2.	Jolyon Palmer	DAMS	1:15.352	+ 0.040	15
3.	Felipe Nasr	Carlin Motorsport	1:15.358	+ 0.046	18
4.	Stefano Coletti	Racing Engineering	1:15.443	+ 0.131	17
5.	Raffaele Marciello	Racing Engineering	1:15.449	+ 0.137	18
6.	Stoffel Vandoorne	ART Grand Prix	1:15.481	+ 0.169	17
7.	Arthur Pic	Campos Racing	1:15.608	+ 0.296	17
8.	Mitch Evans	RT Russian Time	1:15.614	+ 0.302	17
9.	Alexander Rossi	EQ8 Caterham Racing	1:15.644	+ 0.332	17
10.	Stéphane Richelmi	DAMS	1:15.664	+ 0.352	16
11.	Andre Negrao	Arden International	1:15.773	+ 0.461	16
12.	Julián Leal	Carlin Motorsport	1:15.784	+ 0.472	16
13.	Rio Haryanto	EQ8 Caterham Racing	1:15.811	+ 0.499	16
14.	Andrew Quaife-Hobbs	Rapax Team	1:15.927	+ 0.615	16
15.	Tio Ellinas	MP Motorsport	1:15.964	+ 0.652	15
16.	Sergio Canamasas	Trident Racing	1:16.034	+ 0.722	16
17.	Takuya Izawa	ART Grand Prix	1:16.092	+ 0.780	17
18.	Artem Markelov	RT Russian Time	1:16.136	+ 0.824	17
19.	Daniel Abt	Hilmer Motorsport	1:16.246	+ 0.934	19
20.	Kimiya Sato	Campos Racing	1:16.271	+ 0.962	17
21.	René Binder	Arden International	1:16.331	+ 1.019	17
22.	Daniël de Jong	MP Motorsport	1:16.334	+ 1.022	14
23.	Facu Regalia	Hilmer Motorsport	1:16.497	+ 1.185	18
24.	Simon Trummer	Rapax Team	1:16.531	+ 1.219	17
25.	Conor Daly	Venezuela GP Lazarus	1:16.539	+ 1.227	14
26.	Nathanaël Berthon	Venezuela GP Lazarus	1:16.654	+ 1.342	16