Jules Bianchi claims Moscow Formula Renault 3.5 race two pole

The Ferrari junior driver was a constant threat throughout the session, and he finally moved to the top of the order for the first time in the final minute. At that point he deposed former championship leader Sam Bird, and although the Briton improved his time on the next lap, it was still not quite enough to retake top spot.

Bianchi then seemed to remove all doubt by going even faster on his final lap, but the Tech 1 driver was made to sweat a bit by Lotus's Marco Sorensen, who ended his last lap just 0.097 seconds adrift to take second position.

A late improvement from Arthur Pic (DAMS) pushed Bird (ISR) back to fourth, but the Mercedes Formula 1 test driver could at least take some heart from the fact that he outqualified title rival Robin Frijns, who could only manage sixth for Fortec behind Lotus driver Cesar Ramos.

Nico Muller (Draco) and Kevin Korjus (Tech 1) will share the fourth row, ahead of a much-improved Nick Yelloly, who has endured a torrid weekend for Comtec so far. P1's Walter Grubmuller completed the top 10, while 11th-placed Lucas Foresti (DAMS) will drop five positions as a penalty for crashing into Alexander Rossi (Arden) and Kevin Magnussen (Carlin) at the end of race one.

Pos  Driver                  Team            Time       Gap
 1.  Jules Bianchi           Tech 1          1m23.388s
 2.  Marco Sorensen          Lotus           1m23.485s  + 0.097s
 3.  Arthur Pic              DAMS            1m23.563s  + 0.175s
 4.  Sam Bird                ISR             1m23.677s  + 0.289s
 5.  Cesar Ramos             Lotus           1m23.844s  + 0.456s
 6.  Robin Frijns            Fortec          1m23.924s  + 0.536s
 7.  Nico Muller             Draco           1m24.033s  + 0.645s
 8.  Kevin Korjus            Tech 1          1m24.132s  + 0.744s
 9.  Nick Yelloly            Comtec          1m24.321s  + 0.933s
10.  Walter Grubmuller       P1              1m24.349s  + 0.961s
11.  Lucas Foresti           DAMS            1m24.353s  + 0.965s
12.  Alexander Rossi         Arden Caterham  1m24.478s  + 1.090s
13.  Mikhail Aleshin         RFR             1m24.522s  + 1.134s
14.  Kevin Magnussen         Carlin          1m24.578s  + 1.190s
15.  Andre Negrao            Draco           1m24.586s  + 1.198s
16.  Carlos Huertas          Fortec          1m24.628s  + 1.240s
17.  Daniil Move             P1              1m24.743s  + 1.355s
18.  Vittorio Ghirelli       Comtec          1m24.863s  + 1.475s
19.  Zoel Amberg             Pons            1m24.894s  + 1.506s
20.  Anton Nebylitskiy       RFR             1m24.939s  + 1.551s
21.  Antonio Felix da Costa  Arden Caterham  1m24.997s  + 1.609s
22.  Jake Rosenzweig         ISR             1m25.090s  + 1.702s
23.  Will Stevens            Carlin          1m25.421s  + 2.033s
24.  Sergey Sirotkin         BVM Target      1m25.514s  + 2.126s
25.  Yann Cunha              Pons            1m25.617s  + 2.229s
26.  Nikolay Martsenko       BVM Target      1m25.680s  + 2.292s