KEY POINTS:
Second fastest for much of final qualifying, Brendon Hartley was shuffled down the pack in a frantic last minute dash for grid positions at the Masters of Formula 3 race at the Zolder circuit in Belgium overnight.
The New Zealander had been on the pace throughout testing and practice, in both dry and wet conditions; but will start tonight's 28-lap race from ninth place on the 37-car grid.
Hartley's Red Bull Dallara Mercedes is up against the best of Formula 3 competition in the annual showdown between the British and European championship drivers.
"I was holding second fastest time when the session was red flagged. It restarted with just five minutes to run and I got stuck in traffic for those couple of laps," explained Hartley.
"We didn't have the outright pace for pole but I should have been in the top four - it didn't happen - but it could be wet for the race and we were quick in the wet practice," he said.
A similar situation frustrated Hartley in the F3 Masters in 2007 when he was running fastest until a late red flag delay. Last season he qualified sixth and finished fourth in his F3 debut at the one-off Zolder race that is run on the Kumho tyres used in the Euro F3 series .The British Championship, in which Hartley finished second and first in last weekend's Spa races in Belgium, is run on Avon tyres.
A1GP Champion Nico Hulkenberg snapped up pole position for this weekend's Masters race with a sensational late effort in last night's final qualifying session.
The German, who is bidding to become the first driver ever to win back-to-back Masters titles, produced an incredible lap in the dying seconds of the session to steal the pole from his ART teammate Jules Bianchi.
Bianchi was more than half a second clear of the field for half the top 20 shootout with Hartley leading the pursuit. Several attempts to topple Bianchi with new tyres failed, until a stranded car forced the session to be red flagged.
At the restart there was only time for two flying laps each. Several drivers took it turns to catapult themselves into the top six, but none could match Bianchi's earlier effort.
Hulkenberg's first effort was two tenths shy and only good enough for third, but he improved by half a second on his final lap to snatch the pole from Bianchi by more than quarter of a second.
Renger van der Zande got within a tenth of Bianchi with his last effort and earned third place on the grid, while Koudai Tsukakoshi completed the second row, heading a train of 14 cars covered by less than half a second.
Stefano Coletti finished up fifth, ahead of Max Chilton, who was best of the British championship drivers in sixth. Jon Lancaster, Mika Maki, Hartley and Daniel Campos-Hull completed the top ten.
