Lando Norris took his sixth pole of the season at Circuit Park Zandvoort, with Carlin team-mate Ferdinand Habsburg splitting the Briton and his title rivals Joel Eriksson, Maximilian Gunther and Callum Ilott.
The record-setting pace set in practice was not matched, although 16 of the 19 drivers were covered by less than a second.
Ilott was the initial pace-setter, with Norris taking over the top spot at half distance and holding it till the end.
Despite improving, Ilott dropped down the time-sheets and was slower than Habsburg (who recorded his best ever qualifying result only 0.012 seconds off team-mate Norris), Eriksson and practice topper Gunther.
Ralf Aron was the top HitechGP driver in sixth, ahead of Motopark’s David Beckmann, Prema drivers Guan Yu Zhou and Mick Schumacher, and the second HitechGP car occupied by Jake Hughes.
The returning Tadaske Makino overturned the deficit to debutant Ameya Vaidyananthan he had in practice, qualifying his HitechGP car in 18th and a full second faster than Carlin’s Vaidyanathan.
Qualifying 1 Results
1 Lando Norris Carlin 1m28.362s
2 Ferdinand Habsburg Carlin +0.012s
3 Joel Eriksson Motopark +0.080s
4 Maximilian Gunther Prema +0.158s
5 Callum Ilott Prema +0.159s
6 Ralf Aron HitechGP +0.282s
7 David Beckmann Motopark +0.373s
8 Guan Yu Zhou Prema +0.400s
9 Mick Schumacher Prema +0.404s
10 Jake Hughes HitechGP +0.462s
