Nico Hulkenberg scored a home track pole position for tomorrow's GP2 Series race at the Nurburgring after an eventful qualifying session this afternoon. The German edged Roldan Rodriguez out of the top spot with a 1m38.161s five minutes before the end of the session, beating the Piquet GP driver by just 0.089sec.

Hulkenberg's cause was helped when Luca Filippi spun and stranded himself in the traffic island at the final chicane immediately after the ART driver moved to the top of the sheets, bringing out yellow flags in the final sector. The stricken Super Nova car was cleared with two minutes remaining, giving Hulkenberg's rivals a final chance to pull something out of the bag, but no one was able to string a lap together and the rookie's time remained safe.

A few drivers had taken turns at setting quickest times earlier in the session. Racing Engineering's Lucas di Grassi spent the longest spell on top before finally being shuffled back to third, and Javier Villa (Super Nova) also briefly held the fastest time.

Hulkenberg's team-mate Pastor Maldonado will start from fourth ahead of Villa, Fisichella's Andi Zuber and Vitaly Petrov (Addax), while points leader Romain Grosjean could only manage 14th.