DAMS driver Kamui Kobayashi has taken pole for the GP2 Asia Series final round at the Bahrain International Circuit.

It could have been a DAMS 1-2 because teammate Jerome d'Ambrosio actually finished ahead of his Japanese teammate.

But because of a black flag penalty incurred in the previous round in Sepang, the Belgian drops ten placements on the grid, moving him from 1st to 10th.

The fastest hot lap during qualifying set by d'Ambrosia was 1:43.752 with Kobayashi hitting a best lap of 1:43.862. The gap between them was just 0.111 seconds.

Moving onto the front row in the second start position was the only other racer to hit a sub-1:44 time during qualifying.

Roldan Rodriguez clocked off a 1:43.910 with his Piquet GP teammate Diego Nunes hitting a 1:44.014.

Luis Razia of Arden, Giedo van der Garde and Davide Valsecchi of Durango, and Javier Villa of Super Nova rounded out the top eight.

Saturday's 34-lap feature will get underway at 3.50pm (local), right after F1 qualifying. The round's 22-lap sprint will be on Sunday.

Qualifying (top eight): 1 K Kobayashi 1:43.863; 2 R Rodriguez +0.158s; 3 D Nunes +0.262s; 4 P Maldonado +0.349s; 5 L Razia +0.389s; 6 G van der Garde +0.422s; 7 D Valsecchi +0.558s; 8 J Villa +0.567s.

Practice (top eight): 1 D Nunes 1:44.290; 2 R Rodriguez +0.000s; 3 L Razia +0.478s; 4 A Parente +0.515s; 5 D Valsecchi +0.537s; 6 K Kobayashi 0.591s; 7 E Mortara +0.653s; 8 J d'Ambrosio +0.722s; 18 Hamad Al Fardan +1.601s.