ART Grand Prix' Nico Hulkenberg has taken his second successive pole, beating both Barwa International Campos Team drivers, as the young German strengthens his GP2 rising star status

In an eventful session, the German's 1:35.741 was 0.7s faster than his closest rivals, Sergio Perez and Vitaly Petrov and few would bet against the former A1GP star dominating tomorrow's Feature Race.

Perez, the youngest driver on the entry list and youngest driver to ever win a GP2 race bettered his Russian teammate's quickest lap time in the very last seconds of the session. On a slippery track, Vitaly Petrov - who had been fastest earlier in free practice - looked to be in really good shape, topping the timesheets for almost the entire session.

Four minutes before the chequered flag, Hülkenberg posted the quickest first sector, but iSport's Al Fardan span at Turn 12 and finished in the gravel trap. The session was subsequently red-flagged.

With only 3 minutes and 34 seconds remaining, the field returned to the track. The German ace put his head down and snatched pole on his very last lap. A few seconds later, Petrov crossed the line, but could not better Hülkenberg's time. Sergio Perez stormed through soon afterwards and pushed back his teammate back to P3.

Behind the Top 3, championship leader Kamui Kobayashi recovered fourth place on his very last lap after a rather difficult session while Piquet's Roldan Rodriguez finished fifth. Sakon Yamamoto, Javier Villa, Davide Valsecchi, Edoardo Mortara and Jérôme d'Ambrosio complete the Top 10.