Carlin's Robert Wickens mastered a drenched qualifying session at the Nurburgring to claim his second pole position of the Formula Renault 3.5 weekend.
Wickens was a commanding 0.583 second faster than Gravity-Charouz racer Brendon Hartley. Both drivers were part of a minority who improved their times after the session was restarted with three minutes remaining.
Walter Grubmuller had prompted the red flags after finding the tire wall at the final corner. The Austrian exited his P1 Motorsport car unaided but an ambulance was sent to the scene when Grubmuller appeared to be in discomfort.
Jean-Eric Vergne was supreme in the early stages, but was demoted from top spot by his team-mate Wickens after 20 minutes of the half-hour session.
The Frenchman later demonstrated how much effort he was exerting in a bid to wrestle the position back when the rear of his car broke away on the entry to the Ford Kurve. Vergne survived the moment but took to the escape road at the Veedol chicane later on the lap.
Vergne ended the morning shading Epic Racing's Albert Costa by 0.009s to head the second row of the grid for this afternoon's race.
Monaco winner Daniel Ricciardo (ISR) was fifth, a tenth of a second up on KMP Racing's Nelson Panciatici, who suffered a puncture after contact with Fairuz Fauzy in race one.
Today's fourth row is set to be all-Fortec affair. Alexander Rossi spun early in the session at the Ford Kurve, but the American skilfully avoided the Nurburgring's tire barriers to take seventh place, and team honors, ahead of Cesar Ramos.