Nathaniel Powers has taken pole position for the Australian V-Prix following a session that saw tremendous track evolution, with the pole time being over three seconds quicker than the fastest time on the first run. The grid has essentially been decided by who set their final lap latest and was able to avoid slower cars, with Powers coming out on top. Enrique Ruiz was able to complete one further lap, but had already used the best of his tyres and failed to improve, ending up just 57 thousandths shy of Powers' pole time of a 1:24.829. Q1As ever, Q1 was a lively affair and provided a taste of what was to come, as despite only seeing seven cars the track evolved considerably during the short session. Finn Schnyder led the way for the third time in three races, but the joy wasn't shared on the other side of the AMR garage, as team mate Max Meyer suffered an engine failure before completing a lap. This seemingly opened up the potential for either Arrow or Highwind to get both cars onto the grid, with Meteor still looking off the pace as they have done at the previous two races. Yakumi Takahashi put Arrow in with the best chance early on, but spun and crashed at turn two after his second fast lap, abruptly ending his session. As was seen in practice, the track got faster quickly and Takahashi's time looked under threat as the chequered flag loomed. First team mate Zander Brynildsen beat it, lapping within two tenths of Schnyder, but Karl Beckenbauer was unable to do so for Highwind, with a scruffy lap putting him a tenth and a half back. Nikolai Milkovich gave the Irish outfit some cheers by putting his car into third as Felix Beyer failed to move from the foot of the timesheets, but as Arrow looked set to celebrate both cars making the race, a sensational lap from Carson Davenport knocked Takahashi out, and ensured every team in Q1 would have a car making the race. Q2As teams and fans alike tried to process the drama of Q1 - as Meteor celebrated wildly in their garage - the light went green to signal the start of Q2, and remind everyone there was still the small matter of sorting out the grid order. As in practice, Klaas van Snelheid was quick out of the blocks to top the times early on, but with a later first run a stellar effort from Puccio Giodano saw the Italian go top by half a second as the session neared the halfway mark. This however was merely a taster of the chaos to come, as teams and drivers tried to judge their second runs to ensure they could get the maximum from the track with the minimum amount of traffic. Firstly Schnyder impressed again jumping into second as Nick Addison sent the home fans wild with a purple opening sector, some two tenths up on Giodano. Brynildsen put his Arrow briefly third before Addison went comfortably top, but the home fans were immediately dismayed as van Snelheid beat him, taking back the provisional pole position as half their rivals filtered in behind, while the other half tried to judge the best time to join the action. Felix Perez was the first of the big names still in the pits to join the fray with practice pace-setter Allar Kangur not far behind. The Estonian had got caught up in traffic on his first run and was languishing down the order, but was fed out into a train of cars, resulting in numerous Estonian swear words on the radio. Will Hoskins befell a similar fate as Powers and Ruiz became the last two drivers to join the action, both finding themselves crucial metres of clear track. It was the defending Champion who just judged it slightly better however, as Ruiz slotted into second before being unable to improve on a second and final lap. Elroy Wagner fared better than team mate Kangur to continue his form of qualifying inside the top three and head the second row, where he will be joined by Perez. van Snelheid fell to fifth by the flag ahead of Addison, while Adrien Simon just pipped Danilo Forini to seventh by two thousandths of a second, the Swiss man struggling to match the pace of his rivals. With Kangur and Hoskins finding themselves down the field, there were two spots left in the top ten for some unusual suspects, and they went the way of Thierry Xylander and James Vasquez, both of whom improved considerably on their form from Malaysia, somewhat to the surprise of their teams. Marcus Thunder starts just outside in eleventh ahead of Brock Kidd, while Tumo Kinnumen gave Westwood their best qualifying of the season in thirteenth ahead of a disappointed Ocelot duo. Nonetheless they fared better than Kangur, who finds himself 20th on the grid, just ahead of Schnyder who slipped back 19 places from when he set his lap. Brynildsen likewise ended up back in 23rd by the flag, but Hoskins was perhaps the most frustrated of all, with the FIRST driver resigned to a back-row start alongside Davenport after failing to get even one clean lap in. See below for full classification:
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