Having taken pole position for the F3 Euroseries season opener at Hockenheim, Nico Hulkenberg made it two-from-two after also securing his place at the front of the grid for the second round of the year at Mugello.
The German left it until the final ten minutes of the session to post a best time of 1min 41.433secs which proved to be beyond any of his rivals, with Manor Motorsports Japanese driver Koudai Tsukakoshi getting closest with a lap of 1min 41.609secs.
“Qualifying wasn't easy,”
Williams F1 test driver Hulkenberg said. “Compared to free practice, the track had changed a lot so that the car didn't behave all the time like I had expected it to. Moreover, the asphalt was significantly warmer than in the morning.
“In these conditions, tyres wore out particularly quickly, I could only do one quick lap. This one was about 95 percent right.”
Another German driver, Christian Vietoris, looked like he could usurp his countryman in the closing stages before he made a mistake and went through the gravel, although the Mucke man was still happy with third on the grid, while Renger van der Zande will join him on row two.
Jules Bianchi led the rookie challenge in a fine fifth overall ahead of his ART team-mate James Jakes, while Edoardo Mortara was the first of the Volkswagen-powered drivers in seventh. Dani Close, Hockenheim race winner Mika Maki, and Kazuya Oshima rounded out the top ten.
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![ART Grand Prix star and 2007 F3 Euroseries Champion Romain Grosjean in testing ahead of the inaugural GP2 Asia Series in Dubai [pic credit: GP2 Media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/427349.jpg)
