Having released the pressure of getting that first win under his belt during the previous round of the World Series by Renault at Donington Park, Alx Danielsson maintained his momentum in qualifying for the penultimate meeting of the championship at Le Mans by claiming a second consecutive pole position.

After already triumphing in the first two practice sessions of the weekend, double Donington winner Danielsson is taking his late title charge seriously, storming to the front of the grid ahead of the returning Tristan Gommendy and Milos Pavlovic.

Furthermore, while Danielsson still has several points to make up, he goes into the first race later today in the knowledge that arch-rivals Pastor Maldonado, Alvaro Parente, Andy Soucek and Borja Garcia will be starting the race way back in 11th, 12th, 13th and 16th respectively.

Featuring in the first of the two qualifying groups, Danielsson did not take long to stamp his mark on a high quality group that consisted of Maldonado and Soucek, even if it was the Venezuelan that initially led the way, albeit after Marcos Martinez's car was removed from the circuit following a crash.

However, Maldonado would lose a considerable amount of time at a crucial time in the 20-minute session when he suffered a puncture, giving Danielsson the prompt to push on and slip well into the 1min 25secs bracket.

With only a couple of minutes on the clock remaining, the leader board had a different look to it than normal with Danielsson being tailed closely by surprise packages Robbie Kerr and Miguel Molina, the Spaniard showing well on only his second outing with GD Racing.

However, their joy was short lived when they were dropped to fourth and fifth by a last gasp effort from Pavlovic for Draco and Christian Montanari in the Prema Powerteam entry. Kerr was fourth, but Molina, who ended the session an impressive fifth place, is set to start from the back of the grid after forcing the yellow flags to be deployed when he spun with only a few seconds of the session remaining.

Maldonado and Soucek will benefit but sixth and seventh fastest in their group is certainly not where they will want to be, not least because of Danielsson's sheer momentum at this crucial stage in the championship.

“I was in the more difficult group, with a lot of quick drivers,” Danielsson said. “But it can also be a psychological advantage when you manage to come out on top. I'm very pleased to get the extra point for pole position. I now need to pick up a lot more!”