Nathaniel Powers has taken pole position for the South African V-Prix, but team mate and joint championship leader Klaas van Snelheid endured a torrid session with traffic, and will start down in 15th. Felix Perez starts alongside Powers on the front row, while Elroy Wagner continued his run of qualifying inside the top three at every race this season, taking third. Q1With two of the four teams guaranteed not to make the grid due to missing the strategy deadline, Q1 was a somewhat quiet affair. All teams headed out towards the end of the session for a solitary run, but largely to gather more data than to push for competitive laps. Nonetheless, it was home hero Max Meyer who topped the session from AMR team mate Finn Schnyder, with Karl Beckenbauer third fastest to ensure he would have made his first race this season regardless, at the track where he failed to qualify for Westwood last year. Yakumi Takahashi was fourth fastest for Arrow, by just 0.080 from Nikolai Milkovich, but due to the exclusion for Arrow it was the Russian who progressed. Zander Brynildsen was sixth fastest while behind them, Felix Beyer beat Carson Davenport for the first time in 2021. Q2Unsurprisingly, Q2 saw far more action, with numerous drivers hitting the track as soon as the lights went green. Perez was the first of those and therefore the first driver to set a lap time, and one that was surprisingly strong for a first run, and held firm at the top as his rivals came at him. The Lopez duo of Allar Kangur and Wagner slotted into second and third initially before Adrien Simon moved to the top, the Frenchman showing a turn of pace that team mate Enrique Ruiz seemingly struggled to match. Will Hoskins slotted in just behind Perez before the pair were split by a great lap from Puccio Giodano, but there was early trouble in the Downton camp behind as van Snelheid was stuck behind Meyer, while Powers' first effort was scruffy, putting him half a second off the pace in seventh. Franklin were also struggling to find clear air, with Nick Addison only just creeping into the top ten and Danilo Forini finding himself well off the pace, stuck behind a train of cars led by Tumo Kinnumen's Westwood. Meanwhile Ruiz's difficult session continued, the Brazilian spinning at Barbeque. Kangur was first on the scene as he recovered, and spun in sympathy, arriving backwards into the corner in a somewhat comical moment. As the drivers headed back out on their second set of tyres, Powers found himself once more following a car - this time Karl Beckenbauer's Highwind. But as the 4-time champion wound up to start his lap, Beckenbauer pitted - leaving Powers with clear track which he duly made the most of, taking provisional pole by half a second. His rivals came back at him; Simon, then Wagner, then Perez all took P2, but none could find enough pace to challenge Powers. Ruiz improved but only to fifth behind his team mate, while a great lap from Marcus Thunder put the Lucas just a touch behind in sixth. Forini improved on his second run but encountered traffic in the final sector, leaving him seventh ahead of Kangur who found himself stuck behind slower cars for his entire second run. Maximilian Thunstrom put both Lucas cars in the top nine with a strong lap, while Addison completed the top ten. van Snelheid's second run was started late - the team hoping a few of their competitors would have pitted by then - but it was to no avail, as he ended up stuck behind Wagner, now lapping slower as his tyres had gone off. van Snelheid did attempt an overtake at The Crocodiles on his outlap, but Wagner swept across late to close the door. Like the Dutchman, Will Hoskins endured another difficult session with traffic and will start just 14th, though due to his torrid luck thus far in 2021, that's his second highest grid position of the season. See below for full classification:
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