Carlos Sainz set the early pace before Oliver Rowland took charge. The session was then interrupted when Sergey Sirotkin’s (Fortec Motorsports) car came to halt on the track and had to be removed. On the restart Carlos Sainz and Oliver Rowland continued to trade blows, with Jazeman Jaafar (ISR) then moving out front at the midway point.

The drivers came out on new tyres for the final ten minutes. With five remaining Esteban Ocon (Comtec Racing) moved to the top of the timesheets, though it was Oliver Rowland who snagged pole with a time of 1:30.203 to take the honours in a session cut short by an off-track excursion for Marco Sorensen (Tech 1 Racing).

Saturday’s Formula Renault 3.5 Series race starts at 14:00.

Oliver Rowland: “It wasn’t easy because you need a lot of downforce on this track and you have to compromise. I had to attack as much as I could. I could have gone a little faster but it’s a good result because Carlos and Roberto are behind me. It’s exactly what we needed.”