Jolyon Palmer will start from second place on the grid for tomorrow's (Saturday) GP2 Feature Race at the Red Bull Ring, Austria, after narrowly missing out on his third pole position of the year by just 0.040s.

Palmer was a contender for pole throughout today's qualifying session, running second early on with a lap time of 1m16.748s. He improved on that on his next lap, setting a 1m15.495s, which was good enough for provisional pole before Johnny Cecotto took over at the top.

Jolyon improved once more to set a 1m15.352s, just 0.040s off Cecotto's time, before pitting at the mid-way point of the session for fresh tyres.

Returning to the track with nine minutes remaining, Jolyon was potentially on course to improve his time even further, but an uncharacteristic spin on the penultimate corner prevented this and he returned to the pits before the end of the session.

Jolyon has now qualified on the front row for each Feature Race this year, and will line-up on the grid for tomorrow's race one place ahead of nearest championship rival Felipe Nasr.

Jolyon commented: "That was really tight! After a tricky practice session I wasn't sure what to expect in qualifying but we were quick straight away. I couldn't quite get that last bit to be on pole, which is frustrating, but it's so close and I'm happy to be on the front row again tomorrow. Now we will focus on race set up and strategy and plan our challenge for the win tomorrow!"

GP2 Qualifying result:

1. Johnny Cecotto, Trident, 1m15.312s
2. Jolyon Palmer, DAMS, +0.040s
3. Felipe Nasr, Carlin, +0.046s
4. Stefano Coletti, Racing Engineering, +0.131s
5. Raffaele Marciello, Racing Engineering, +0.137s
6. Stoffel Vandoorne, ART GP, +0.169s
7. Arthur Pic, Campos, +0.296s
8. Mitch Evans, Russian Time, +0.302s
9. Alexander Rossi, Caterham, +0.332s
10. Stephane Richelmi, DAMS, +0.352s