Formula 2 Championship leader Felipe Drugovich secured pole position around Spa-Francorchamps by almost four-tenths to hit back in the title fight.
Championship rival Theo Pourchaire had to settle for P8, with Enzo Fittipaldi making it an all-Brazilian front row for the Feature Race on Sunday. Williams Academy driver Logan Sargeant rounded out the top three, posting his best effort at the final opportunity to secure third on the grid.
Jack Doohan and Juri Vips suffered spins early on though the latter was unable to get going again, bringing out an early red flag after stalling on the exit of La Source.
Drugovich was flying straight away following the resumption and secured provisional pole at the halfway point in the session. The MP Motorsport driver was the first to set a time beneath the two-minute barrier.
While the earlier rain had threatened to return throughout the F2 session, things remained dry and the track slowly improved. Drugovich went from strength to strength, setting the ultimate pace with time to spare. His 1m 58.232s was comfortably quickest heading into the final three minutes of the session.
With time still on the clock, rivals started their final laps with just over a minute remaining, but nobody could get close enough to worry the MP driver.
Fittipaldi put in a stellar lap at the end to lift himself up to second, 0.383s down on the pole-sitter. Sargeant likewise left it late to improve into the top three, ending up half a second down on the best time of the day.
Doohan recovered from his earlier spin and his final lap put him a provisional P2, but the Alpine Academy man was eventually bumped down to P4. David Beckmann was able to climb up to fifth after having to abort an earlier effort due to traffic in his Van Amersfoort Racing car.
After his FP1 escapades in the AlphaTauri, Liam Lawson signed off a big day in his career with P6 in F2 Qualifying. He was followed by Richard Verschoor, Pourchaire, Jehan Daruvala and Ralph Boschung, who will start the Sprint Race on reverse grid pole.
The Formula 2 Sprint Race is scheduled for lights out at 1800 local time on Saturday.
For more on F2, visit the official series website.
