Photo: Lorenzo Charlez / ASM / Renault Sport Media
Red Bull Junior Team’s Carlos Sainz continued to exercise his monopoly over pole positions in the 2014 Formula Renault 3.5 season, topping his third qualifying session in a row at Aragon.
The Spaniard came out on top in a fiercely competitive session, leading the field to the midway point and then narrowly edging out rivals to take provisional pole in the closing five minutes.
Despite appearing to be the grid’s pacesetter in the session, Sainz nearly lost his pole when he didn’t improve under the checkered flag, allowing late charger Oliver Rowland to get within 0.018s of his time.
As such, the duo, who were both runners-up in Formula Renault 3.5’s feeder series Eurocup at different points in their careers, locked out the front row.
A strong showing from Nikolay Martsenko saw the lone Comtec driver settle for third on the grid, leading Zeta Corse driver Roberto Merhi and AVF’s Zoel Amberg.
Pierre Gasly was the top-placed Arden man in sixth, ahead of Marlon Stockinger, Pietro Fantin and Sergey Sirotkin. In tenth, Will Buller was just 0.323s off the pole lap.
Session results
| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
| 1 | Carlos Sainz | DAMS | 1:40.418 | 14 | |
| 2 | Oliver Rowland | Fortec Motorsports | 1:40.436 | 0.018 | 13 |
| 3 | Nikolay Martsenko | Comtec Racing | 1:40.474 | 0.056 | 14 |
| 4 | Roberto Merhi | Zeta Corse | 1:40.581 | 0.163 | 11 |
| 5 | Zoel Amberg | AVF | 1:40.611 | 0.193 | 14 |
| 6 | Pierre Gasly | Arden Motorsport | 1:40.624 | 0.206 | 13 |
| 7 | Marlon Stockinger | Lotus | 1:40.692 | 0.274 | 14 |
| 8 | Pietro Fantin | International Draco Racing | 1:40.702 | 0.284 | 15 |
| 9 | Sergey Sirotkin | Fortec Motorsports | 1:40.709 | 0.291 | 13 |
| 10 | William Buller | Arden Motorsport | 1:40.741 | 0.323 | 14 |
| 11 | Jazeman Jaafar | ISR | 1:40.823 | 0.405 | 13 |
| 12 | Matias Laine | Strakka Racing | 1:40.894 | 0.476 | 13 |
| 13 | Matthieu Vaxiviere | Lotus | 1:41.193 | 0.775 | 14 |
| 14 | Norman Nato | DAMS | 1:41.198 | 0.780 | 12 |
| 15 | Will Stevens | Strakka Racing | 1:41.201 | 0.783 | 14 |
| 16 | Meindert van Buuren | Pons Racing | 1:41.244 | 0.826 | 13 |
| 17 | Luca Ghiotto | International Draco Racing | 1:41.277 | 0.859 | 13 |
| 18 | Marco Sorensen | Tech 1 Racing | 1:41.344 | 0.926 | 13 |
| 19 | Roman Mavlanov | Zeta Corse | 1:41.648 | 1.230 | 12 |
| 20 | Oliver Webb | Pons Racing | 1:41.649 | 1.231 | 13 |
| 21 | Beitske Visser | AVF | 1:42.240 | 1.822 | 13 |