Arden rookie Charles Pic will start tomorrow's GP2 Series feature race from pole after topping an eventful wet qualifying session at Hockenheim.
A restart with four and a half minutes remaining made for a frantic end to the session, with provisional polesitter Adrian Zaugg of Trident seeing his time bettered by Pastor Maldonado (Rapax), iSport's Oliver Turvey and finally Pic in the last minute, with the Frenchman's 1m41.638s putting him 0.268sec clear of series leader Maldonado.
Turvey held on to third and will start alongside Addax's Sergio Perez, who vaulted up from 20th in the final moments, with Zaugg, Racing Engineering's Dani Clos, Rapax's Luiz Razia and Super Nova's Marcus Ericsson completing the top eight.
The session was interrupted twice by red flags, the first coming out when Ocean's Max Chilton spun and stalled on the main straight. The Briton had been an impressive fourth at the time but was eventually shuffled back to 15th, and the team's misery was completed with Fabio Leimer slid into the barriers while Chilton's car was being recovered.
The second red flag was prompted by iSport's Davide Valsecchi and ART's Sam Bird crashing almost simultaneously at different parts of the circuit, and the duo will start from 19th and 22nd respectively.
Romain Grosjean was on target for a front row start in his comeback race for most of the session, but dropped back through the field in the late scramble and ended up 13th for DAMS.