Monaco will start the feature race from pole position at the South African round of the A1GP series after Clivio Piccione set the fastest time in qualifying at Kyalami.
Piccione's time of one minute 27.269 seconds was the best of the session as he edged out Malaysia's Fairuz Fauzy and New Zealand driver Earl Bamber.
In the race for the title, second-placed Switzerland, the reigning champions, will start the feature race from fifth on the grid with Neel Jani behind the wheel.
Series leaders Ireland will begin from sixth courtesy of Adam Carroll, with Portugal, for whom Filipe Albuquerque is driving, beginning seventh as they look to move up from third in the points standings.
Qualifying for the feature race ended early as Brazil's Felipe Guimares crashed into a tyre wall and the red flag had to be shown.
Holland's Jeroen Bleekemolen will begin the sprint race from pole after heading home Albuquerque and Jani.
Carroll begins the sprint race from sixth and could see his points lead cut as his two title rivals are in the top three on the grid.
Piccione was delighted with his first pole position.
He said: ‘We started the day with the car as we left it last night and straight away I was quite comfortable and able to set good lap times on the new tyres.
‘I knew that we were going in the right direction and, after a few changes to try to improve on a few corners, we went back out to complete the programme.
‘Overall, I was confident that we had a good car, so we made no further changes for qualifying.’
Piccione was fastest despite making a mistake.
He added: ‘I had a perfect lap until a small mistake at the chicane but the time was good enough for pole.
‘After that the red flag stopped the session and so, for once luck, was on our side.
‘We now hold the record for the fastest lap around Kyalami.’
