Jolyon Palmer took advantage of a dry afternoon GP2 Series qualifying session to take seventh place on the grid for this weekend's first race at Spa-Francorchamps.

After a damp morning session, the drivers were greeted with far better conditions and a dry track. Nevertheless many drivers took the opportunity to head straight out on track, including Jolyon.

Jolyon's first flying lap was just three tenths away from provisional pole position, although the mark was lowered by another half a second within a few moments after he crossed the line. However he remained in fifth place as the field returned to the pitlane for mid-session adjustments.

Jolyon returned to the track with the majority of the field for the final few moments of the session. However with drivers needing to take care to avoid a slow-moving Adrian Quaife-Hobbs, who was recovering his car to the pitlane, just just one chance remained to set a fast lap.

Jolyon was unable to better his first effort and despite losing a further two places in the last moments, will start tomorrow's opening race from seventh place.

"I'm happy with that session," Jolyon exclaimed afterwards. "We made a lot of progress with the set up after practice and I put in a good lap for P7. I won from there in the Hungary feature race, so I'm hoping for the same again tomorrow. Now we just have to see what happens with the weather."

Russian Time's Sam Bird took the pole position and race one will take place at 2:40pm tomorrow - you can follow this on Jolyon's website.

GP2 Qualifying, Spa-Francorchamps
1, S Bird, Russian Time, 1:56.957s
2, F Leimer, Racing Eng, +0.199s
3, J Calado, ART, +0.447s
4, M Ericsson, DAMS, +0.581s
5, A Rossi, Caterham, +0.621s
6, N Berthon, Trident, +0.631s
7, J Palmer, Carlin, +0.734s
8, S Richelmi, DAMS, +0.845s
9, S Canamasas, Caterham, +0.847s
10, F Nasr, Carlin, +0.882s