Nathaniel Powers has taken pole position for the German V-Prix ahead of team mate Klaas van Snelheid, ending both Ruiz and Mathershaw Porsche's run of front row starts. The Downton duo were amongst the last of the runners to switch to the slick tyres in the dying minutes, and both sat outside the top 20 with ten minutes to go, before setting times good enough to lock out the front row. Q1The opening session of qualifying started dry but under very heavy black clouds which saw all eight cars lined up at the end of the pit lane before the session began, all desperate to get an early time in. Yakumi Takahashi lapped quickest initially but only wound up third in the end, however it was clear from the off that the Cheema and Arrow cars would progress, as both Meteor and AMR struggled to find any reasonable pace to challenge them. Dmytro Kovalenko got closest, but even his effort - despite being some three tenths quicker than anyone else who failed to qualify - was still just over one and a half tenths slower than Nikolai Milkovich. As it was, Tumo Kinnumen topped the session that remarkably remained dry throughout, with Lewis Ellington hot on his heels. Takahashi and Milkovich completed the qualifiers while behind, both Finn Schnyder and Giani Ledesma were some way off their respective teammates. See below for full Q1 classification: Q2As the light went green for Q2 - where cars were also queued at the end of the pitlane with championship leader Ruiz up front - the rain began to fall. It got heavier as drivers completed their outlaps, and all bailed for the pitlane and the safety of the Intermediate tyres, bar one - Ruiz. The reigning Champion stuck to his guns and tip-toed around the lap, setting a time only a few seconds shy of those done in completely dry Q1 conditions. By the time he returned to the pits though the conditions had visibly worsened, with the remainder of the field heading out on a mix of Intermediate and Wet tyres. As the rain fell heavier and heavier, it was simply a case of the grid forming up in the order drivers were setting times, resulting in a very mixed up result. Thierry Xylander sat on the front row ahead of James Vasquez and Tumo Kinnumen, while Kiara Thunder was a shock fifth with Nikolai Milkovich alongside. As the drivers started to settle into the wet conditions however, the rain stopped and the track quickly began to dry. Everyone switched back to the Intermediates and times tumbled once again but this time to a slightly more normal tune, as this time Klaas van Snelheid set the best wet time to join Ruiz on the front row. With fifteen minutes to go, Johan Halvosen became the first driver to gamble. A tentative out lap was followed by a stellar effort to get within four tenths of Ruiz as some of his rivals followed suit, Jean Mattson quickly replacing him on the front row before Ruiz obliterated his own time by a second, seemingly putting pole position out of reach. Nikolai Milkovich was next up to sit provisionally second on the grid, and as it became clear slicks were the way to go more drivers dived in, as the clock ticked down to ten minutes remaining. Eventually, both Downton drivers pitted and switched to slicks too - amongst the last of the runners to do so, and while sat down in 21st and 24th respectively. As they got up to speed, Halvosen - now with the most experience on the slicks - shot to the top of the times to finally displace Ruiz with Allar Kangur pushing the Brazilian to third by going second, but was quickly bumped himself as Felix Perez went fastest. As drivers got more and more confident the times tumbled, and Ruiz stole back pole position but only for a few seconds, as van Snelheid finally put a Downton to good use and sent it to the top of the times by just two thousandths of a second. Powers' first effort put him third - just six thousandths off his team mate - and the Downton garage breathed a collective sigh of relief, as behind them the rest of the order also started to normalise. With just minutes to go however, rain began falling again, but van Snelheid put pole further out of Ruiz's reach before Powers stole it from him, while the Brazilian failed to improve. His effort was to be the last however, as the rain became too heavy for further improvements, leaving Downton to celebrate a front row lockout. Mathershaw Porsche have a lockout once again - but this time only of row two - while the FIRST duo line up together on the third row, with neither troubling the four ahead. Halvosen was once again best of the rest in seventh ahead of a stellar effort for Sergio Alvarez, with the second North Star of Gabriele Garcia and Ingram's James Vasquez completing the top ten. Ocelot were left disappointed with 14th their best effort courtesy of lead driver Hunter Ryan, while the two Westwood's will occupy row eight after some recent stand-out performances. At the back however, neither Marcus Thunder or Yakumi Takahashi managed a lap on slick tyres for unknown reasons, and will therefore occupy the final row on the grid. See below for full Q2 classification and the grid:
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