The Frenchman Esteban Ocon (ART Grand Prix) has reached pole position ahead of Tuscher (Jenzer Motorsport) and Ceccon (Arden International) by just one tenth of a second between the three drivers.
The day dawned sunny in Sochi, in contrast to the rain and cold conditions of the Friday. The track continues in some areas with patches of water, which would give a lot of play and excitement for the qualifying.
The drivers went out on track. Variety of opinions for the state of the track, so some drivers came out with water tires and other drivers with slick compound. One of the first to get a time was Jann Mardenborou with rain tires. His times are pretty good with this compound and he placed at the head of the timesheets.
The drivers who went out with slick tires suffered to keep their cars on the track, oversteering situations were usual when drivers touched the white lines marking the edges of the track and the kerbs, which still quite moist.
Soon, the drivers who came out with water tires come into the pits for change them to the slick compound.
The times were improving exponentially as the track was drying out while cars are passing around it and then, there was already a dry lane.
Like all the drivers wanted to continue driving on the circuit because of the obvious improvement of the track conditions, there was a lot of traffic on this 5872 meters length circuit.
The fight for pole was between championship leader Luca Ghiotto (Trident), who was painting all sectors of the timesheets in purple every lap, Matthew Parry (Koiranen GP) and Tuscher, initially. Later, they joined this nice battle for the best time in qualifying local driver Konstantin Tereshchenko (Campos Racing), his teammate Álex Palou and Esteban Ocon, who eventually would become the pole position ahead of the first race weekend.
The only Spanish driver who competes in the GP3 championship, Álex Palou, will start from fourth position in the dirty area of the grid, in the first race of the weekend, Saturday at 13:30 local time (GMT +3).
