Hungary GP2: Lynn beats Vandoorne to maiden pole

Practice pacesetter Vandoorne seemed nailed on for a fourth pole of the season early in the session, setting the pace during the first runs with a 1m28.258s before improving to a 1m28.041s, two tenths clear of nearest challenger Raffaele Marciello.

Williams development driver Lynn at this stage found himself down in eighth place, 0.763s shy of Vandoorne, but after the field came into the pits following their initial runs, Lynn and DAMS teammate Pierre Gasly were both sent back out while the track was relatively clear.

While Gasly, fifth quickest early on, could only find a marginal improvement, Lynn was able to shave over eight tenths off his previous best to move to the top of the leaderboard.

Vandoorne then tried in vain to wrest back the top spot in the closing stages, failing to improve on his earlier benchmark, and was forced to settle for a spot on the front row beside Lynn.

Arthur Pic jumped up to third ahead of Marciello in the dying stages with a time just 0.132s off the pace, with Gasly ending up fifth ahead of another late improver in the shape of Jordan King.

Rio Haryanto was seventh fastest, ahead of Mitch Evans, Sergey Sirotkin and Nick Yelloly, while Alexander Rossi could do no better than 11th with a time 0.785s off the pace.

Nicholas Latifi managed to lap within a second of the pace to secure 12th place for his GP2 debut, with fellow newcomer Sean Gelael languishing down in 24th place.

Qualifying Results:

Pos	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Alex Lynn	DAMS	1:28.022
2	Stoffel Vandoorne	ART Grand Prix	1:28.041	0.019
3	Arthur Pic	Campos Racing	1:28.154	0.132
4	Raffaele Marciello	Trident	1:28.272	0.250
5	Pierre Gasly	DAMS	1:28.361	0.339
6	Jordan King	Racing Engineering	1:28.471	0.449
7	Rio Haryanto	Campos Racing	1:28.538	0.516
8	Mitch Evans	RUSSIAN TIME	1:28.608	0.586
9	Sergey Sirotkin	Rapax	1:28.685	0.663
10	Nick Yelloly	Hilmer Motorsport	1:28.782	0.760
11	Alexander Rossi	Racing Engineering	1:28.807	0.785
12	Nicholas Latifi	MP Motorsport	1:28.940	0.918
13	Andre Negrao	Arden International	1:28.957	0.935
14	Richie Stanaway	Status Grand Prix	1:29.038	1.016
15	Robert Visoiu	Rapax	1:29.079	1.057
16	Daniel De Jong	MP Motorsport	1:29.128	1.106
17	Artem Markelov	RUSSIAN TIME	1:29.198	1.176
18	Nathanael Berthon	Daiko Team Lazarus	1:29.234	1.212
19	Sergio Canamasas	Hilmer Motorsport	1:29.315	1.293
20	Julian Leal	Carlin	1:29.351	1.329
21	Nobuharu Matsushita	ART Grand Prix	1:29.635	1.613
22	Norman Nato	Arden International	1:29.641	1.619
23	Marlon Stockinger	Status Grand Prix	1:29.665	1.643
24	Sean Gelael	Carlin	1:29.803	1.781
25	Rene Binder	Trident	1:29.811	1.789