In a session that saw qualifying strategy largely dictate the pecking order and plenty of surprises, it was Belgian Thierry Xylander who lines up on pole position for the German V-Prix tomorrow, scoring his and Phoenix's first ever pole. Q1 After the running on Friday, the track was very green for the drivers today after a rainstorm last night, which showed right off the bat with drivers seeming to struggle on cold tyres. However, it wasn't long before the drivers found themselves comfortable and settled in. It was North Star who held the upper hand this race, with both of their drivers dipping into the 1:10s while the Arrow drivers were unable to break that barrier. It was another hard qualifying for Highwind who found themselves three tenths away from the grid, and Meteor even moreso who were two tenths back from the nearest Highwind. Q2 With their extra running on the still relatively green track, North Star and Arrow got out very early, to get their laps in and make use of their extra confidence. However it became evident before long that going early on your qualifying runs could ruin your session. It wasn't long before times began to fall, and they didn't really stop. Klaas Van Snelheid and Danilo Forini were initially battling it out for pole position, trading fastest laps as both youngsters wrung the neck of their machines, extracting every ounce of performance. However as the session wore on, their early runs looked as though they may cause issues. Klaas was able to improve continuously, however a disaster saw Forini lock up while avoiding traffic into the stadium section. This huge flat spot forced a change of tyres, but as the rest of the field had their tyres at temperature, it was too late and he struggled for grip. Addison picked up where his teammate left off and elevated himself to pole position, with Klaas unable to reclaim the top spot due to excessive tyre wear beginning to set in. A lot of teams chose to only make one run, so it was really make or break on the timing. Despite coming out later, Powers struggled, actually lapping slower than his teammate despite fresher tyres on a more rubbered in track, and didn't ever look particularly comfortable. The Downton team will be hoping to solve any issues before the race. However, it was very late into the session where the headlines were made. Some incredible standout performances were on display, notably from Kinnumen landing his Westwood in the top ten and from Thunder who is once again on fine form in his Lucas, with a time to put himself into fourth place. At this point, Phoenix had watched the results of Q1 and been keeping a close eye of the unfolding of Q2, and sent out Xylander with just seven minutes left of the session. While he had been warming his tyres it was Addison who had laid claim to pole position with an impressive effort, but as Xylander began to set times, people began to wonder if Phoenix had pulled a stroke of genius. And as he clocked his final, fastest time the crowd erupted with cheers; the unlikely youngster had just strung a lap together good enough for pole. And with everybody else on old tyres that were losing their life, he was more or less unopposed in the final moments except for a last ditch heroic effort from Addison. Elsewhere on the grid, FIRST's woes from practice were compounded by neither driver reaching the top ten. Forini was unlucky and unable to recover from his near miss, and only managed 16th place on the grid for tomorrow's grid. Further Arrow looked quietly confident, putting themselves right into the mix with their Q1 rivals in the championship. Having threatened points recently, they may be hoping to do the same tomorrow after a promising set of race sim runs in practice yesterday. Finally, Thunstrom finds himself last on the grid and will undoubtedly be disappointed after showing good pace just yesterday. It's said that he was on the radio complaining of maintaining tyre temperatures, which may be attributed to the tricky conditions at play today. See below for full classification. That's all from us today. Tomorrow's race is set to be a spectacular affair, with cars out of position and the threat of rain looming over us after the intense heat last time out in Silverstone. As always, we look forward to bringing you exclusive live coverage of the event. We'll see you all tomorrow for race day!!
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