Sergey Sirotkin takes Auto GP pole on street debut in Marrakech

The Russian reverted to a trusted set-up in qualifying after problems in second free practice, and contended with two red flags in disrupted session.

"We came back to the set-up that we had in the first session a little bit, and it worked quite well," said Formula Abarth Europe champion Sirotkin. "Then we changed the car a little bit for the super-soft tyres, in order to optimise a really good lap with them, but because of the red flag we didn't put them on. It was just a really quick lap on the soft tyres. I also passed a car on that lap, so it I could have been even quicker."

Virtuosi UK's Pal Varhaug will join Sirotkin on the front row of Saturday's race. The Norwegian swapped fastest times with Italian Formula 3 champion Sergio Campana over the first half of the session. But Varhaug was shaded for pole by 0.078s when Sirtokin moved into first with 15 minutes of the half hour session remaining.

MLR71's Campana held on to take third, just 0.087s adrift of Sirotkin. Experienced Kiwi Chris van der Drift was fourth for MP Motorsport ahead of Super Nova's Adrian Quaife-Hobbs.

The British GP3 graduate was in commanding form during the final free practice session, but struggled to heat up the front tyres of his super-softs compound Kumhos in qualifying. In contrast to Sirotkin, the red flags prevented Quaife-Hobbs from returning to the more familiar soft compound tyres.

The first red flag was brought out after Campos Racing's Giuseppe Cipriani stopped at Turn 1 two thirds of the way into the session. Zele Racing's Giacommo Ricci caused the second stoppage with four minutes to run. The Italian GP2 race winner will start sixth.

A broken gearbox prevented Cipriani's Campos team-mate Max Snegirev from taking part in qualifying.

Pos  Driver               Team         Time       Gap
 1.  Sergey Sirotkin      Euronova     1m29.305s
 2.  Pal Varhaug          Virtuosi UK  1m29.383s  + 0.078s
 3.  Sergio Campana       MLR 71       1m29.392s  + 0.087s
 4.  Chris van der Drift  Manor MP     1m29.718s  + 0.413s
 5.  Adrian Quaife-Hobbs  Super Nova   1m29.798s  + 0.493s
 6.  Giacomo Ricci        Zele         1m30.264s  + 0.959s
 7.  Giancarlo Serenelli  Ombra        1m30.355s  + 1.050s
 8.  Victor Guerin        Super Nova   1m30.462s  + 1.157s
 9.  Facu Regalia         Campos       1m30.588s  + 1.283s
10.  Daniel de Jong       Manor MP     1m30.705s  + 1.400s
11.  Antonio Spavone      Euronova     1m30.948s  + 1.643s
12.  Yann Cunha           Ombra        1m31.350s  + 2.045s
13.  Giuseppe Cipriani    Campos       1m31.366s  + 2.061s
14.  Francesco Dracone    Virtuosi UK  1m32.536s  + 3.231s
15.  Michele la Rosa      MLR 71       1m32.770s  + 3.465s