Jak Crawford earned his second F2 pole of the season for DAMS Lucas Oil in Azerbaijan, setting a 1m 54.791s early on in Qualifying that turned out to be the quickest time of the day.
The Aston Martin development driver secured the top spot on his second run before two red flags in the final 10 minutes of the session prevented any further improvements.
Championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli missed out on P1 by just 0.019s on his first visit to Baku, ending up P2 for Invicta Racing.
Behind them, Gabriele Minì enjoyed one of his best Friday results of the season so far, earning P3 for PREMA Racing.
Victor Martins finished fourth but was the cause of the second red flag after a crash at Turn 3.
It meant the Frenchman lost his fastest lap time, dropping him to P13.
Title contender Alexander Dunne had an earlier scare after sustaining suspension damage in the castle section, but he finished up fourth after a mid-session repair job by Rodin Motorsport in the pit lane.
Luke Browning followed in fifth ahead of Josep María Martí in P6. Martinius Stenshorne, making his F2 debut this weekend, put in an admirable performance to secure P7 for TRIDENT.
Roman Stanek was ninth but was the cause of the final red flag after rejoining the track at Turn 1 into the path of John Bennett. He too lost his fastest lap time, leaving him P12 in the final results.
It promoted Sebastián Montoya up to ninth, with Rafael Villagómez promoted to 10th, the Van Amersfoort Racing driver now set to start the Sprint Race from reverse grid pole.
For a full report of the Formula 2 Qualifying session from Baku, head to the official championship website.