Timo Glock (right) has claimed pole position for tomorrow's first race by just one tenth of a second from teammate Andi Zuber and Bruno Senna in a frantic qualifying session at the Circuit Magny Cours.

The German's late charge to set a lap of 1:21.895 stole the top spot from Zuber, who had been fast throughout the session and had looked comfortable at the top of the table, and helped claim iSport's second 1-2 in qualifying this year, following on from their equal effort in Barcelona.

The session started with a bang, literally, when Vitaly Petrov and Luca Filippi came together at the Adelaide hairpin on their outlap. Both drivers limped back to the pits, but while Petrov was soon back on track after the misunderstanding the Italian was less lucky, having suffered serious suspension problems on his right front. While he managed to get back out in the latter stages of the session, he was unable to push hard and finished 16th, which will almost guarantee that he loses his current second position in the championship standings.

As with this morning's free practice the top spot on the timesheet changed hands rapidly in the early stages of qualifying, with Ernesto Viso, Giorgio Pantano and Lucas di Grassi swapping fastest times, while Glock, Senna and Karun Chandhok were all in the neighbourhood timewise.

Di Grassi was the man to take the fastest lap so far with him as he joined most of the field in the pits for a tyre change, and it looked as though the ART driver was happy with his car after as a result of the recent Paul Ricard test, but his rivals were about to break the Brazilian's hearts as first Pantano, then Senna, then Zuber and finally Glock put themselves on top.

In the closing minutes Glock had a colossal fight on his hands: Pantano was fast but got caught in traffic, Zuber set the fastest first sector time but couldn't quite hold on in sector three, whiledi Grassi closed up on them all but had to be satisfied to slot onto the second row just behind countryman Senna but ahead of Pantano.

Once again there was nothing between most of the drivers: the first fifteen were covered by one second, with all bar one driver within two seconds of pole, all of whom were ahead of last year's pole time of 1:23.911. While the threatened rain held off for qualifying it is anyone's guess what will happen meteorologically tomorrow, although the pace all through the field guarantees a fierce battle in tomorrow's race.