Stoffel Vandoorne returns stronger and confident than ever for this final part of the championship, and especially for this round in Belgium where he dominated the qualifying to get his fifth pole of the season, in front of Formula Renault 3.5 Series championship leader, Oliver Rowland and Sergey Sirotkin.
First qualifying practice after the summer break for the GP2 paddock who arrives at Belgium soil, at Stoffel Vandoorne soil.
The Belgian showed this morning that the bad results that he had in Hungary were just a mirage, setting the fastest time on practice session. The ART Grand Prix driver, early on at qualifying session set an incredible lap time of 1:56.518, four tenths ahead of Rowland (MP Motorsport) and Evans (Russian Time), before the pit stop to put new tyres for the final stint.
The leader of the championship when everyone was in the pits, he came in the track and with an empty track, He improved 2 tenths his lap time when the rest of the field back to the track with 9 minutes remaining.
Then it has been an interchanged situation, with Vandoorne in the pits and the rest of the field in the track getting closer to the McLaren’s young driver lap time. Sirotkin from Rapax, was the first to get very close to Vandoorne, he did a lap time two tenths slower but then, Oliver Rowland came to improve one more tenth and move the Russian to third place.
Any driver made a better lap than the local hero who takes his eight pole position in GP2 Series, his fifth this season. Oliver Rowland will star alongside him on row 1, as the rookies Sirotkin and King (Racing Engineering) will start on second row. Behind them finish Matsushita (ART Grand Prix), Evans, Gasly (Dams), Rossi (Racing Engineering), Lynn (Dams) and Nato (Arden International) closing the top 10.
Underline the bad qualifying that Campos racer, Rio Haryanto had finishing on 11th position, alongside of Marciello (Trident), the last year winner here.
Tomorrow the Race 1 will start at 15.40 central European Time, 14.40 in U.K., 9.40 Eastern Daylight Time.
