» GP2: Marciello claims maiden pole

Coming off an excellent weekend in Austria, Raffaele Marciello has taken his first GP2 pole position at Silverstone.

Marciello, who is part of Ferrari’s development program, topped the time sheets with a 1:40.445, just 0.02 seconds ahead of championship leader Jolyon Palmer.

The top four’s times that were set before the halfway mark of the session were incredibly competitive. Only 0.04 seconds separated Marciello, Palmer, Mitch Evans and Julian Leal.

All drivers had a number of attempts to improve their lap times although none could.

Rookie and Lotus F1 development driver Marco Sorensen impressed greatly for MP Motorsport as he finished his first GP2 qualifying session in seventh position.

Johnny Cecotto Jr. was off the pace and could only manage ninth place, three places behind his closest rival Felipe Nasr in sixth.

Evans had an excellent session placing his Russian Time on the second row of the grid in third alongside Carlin’s Leal.

However, it was a very poor session by Evans’ team-mate Artem Markelov who seems to be struggling as of late. He was 2.2 seconds off Evans’ time and the slowest of the session. He will start in last place.

Stoffel Vandoorne is continuing his fine form from Austria, qualifying in fifth position. His team-mate Takuya Izawa unfortunately didn’t have the same fortune, finishing the session in 24th.

2014 GP2 Series Race of Britain – Qualifying Results:

	Driver	Team / Entry	Time	Gap	Laps
1.	Raffaele Marciello	Racing Engineering	1:40.445		12
2.	Jolyon Palmer	DAMS	1:40.472	+ 0.029	11
3.	Mitch Evans	RT Russian Time	1:40.478	+ 0.033	10
4.	Julián Leal	Carlin Motorsport	1:40.484	+ 0.039	13
5.	Stoffel Vandoorne	ART Grand Prix	1:40.646	+ 0.201	10
6.	Felipe Nasr	Carlin Motorsport	1:40.658	+ 0.213	11
7.	Marco Sørensen	MP Motorsport	1:40.658	+ 0.213	12
8.	Stéphane Richelmi	DAMS	1:40.762	+ 0.317	12
9.	Johnny Cecotto Jr	Trident Racing	1:40.845	+ 0.400	13
10.	Daniel Abt	Hilmer Motorsport	1:40.880	+ 0.435	11
11.	Stefano Coletti	Racing Engineering	1:40.885	+ 0.440	13
12.	Arthur Pic	Campos Racing	1:40.961	+ 0.516	11
13.	Simon Trummer	Rapax Team	1:41.064	+ 0.619	14
14.	Rio Haryanto	EQ8 Caterham Racing	1:41.166	+ 0.721	12
15.	Sergio Canamasas	Trident Racing	1:41.196	+ 0.751	11
16.	Alexander Rossi	EQ8 Caterham Racing	1:41.235	+ 0.790	13
17.	Andrew Quaife-Hobbs	Rapax Team	1:41.252	+ 0.807	13
18.	Daniël de Jong	MP Motorsport	1:41.330	+ 0.885	11
19.	Nathanaël Berthon	Venezuela GP Lazarus	1:41.362	+ 0.917	12
20.	Jon Lancaster	Hilmer Motorsport	1:41.549	+ 1.104	13
21.	Conor Daly	Venezuela GP Lazarus	1:41.556	+ 1.111	12
22.	Kimiya Sato	Campos Racing	1:41.686	+ 1.241	11
23.	Andre Negrão	Arden International	1:41.908	+ 1.463	13
24.	Takuya Izawa	ART Grand Prix	1:42.003	+ 1.558	11
25.	René Binder	Arden International	1:42.373	+ 1.928	12
26.	Artem Markelov	RT Russian Time	1:42.724	+ 2.279	12