Vandoorne takes fourth straight pole

His Yas Marina performance immediately halved the eight-point gap to Felipe Nasr in his quest to overhaul the 2015 Sauber F1 signing for second in the GP2 standings. Nasr starts fifth.

Vandoorne put his ART car on top with a 1m48.736s during the first runs, before being pushed back to fourth behind DAMS duo Jolyon Palmer and Stephane Richelmi plus Russian Time man Mitch Evans when the final pole shots began.

Champion Palmer's provisional pole time of 1m48.187s was six tenths faster than Vandoorne's initial effort, but the Belgian still squeezed ahead by 0.099 seconds.

Although the frontrunners backed off to cool their tyres before trying one last time, Vandoorne was able to cruise once it became clear that the DAMS drivers were not going to topple him.

Behind Vandoorne and Palmer, Richelmi and Evans stay on row two ahead of Nasr.

Red Bull protege Pierre Gasly produced by far the best performance of his short GP2 career to qualify sixth on Caterham's final weekend before its transformation into Status.

The Formula Renault 3.5 runner-up's previous best GP2 qualifying result was a 16th place.

Arthur Pic, Ferrari junior Raffaele Marciello, Stefano Coletti and Rio Haryanto complete the top 10.

GP2 debutant Nicholas Latifi performed well to take 18th, while returnees Conor Daly and Kevin Giovesi were 20th and 25th.

Full results to follow