Goulian, leader of this year's standings after winning the opening race of the season in Abu Dhabi - his first victory in nine years - is now in good shape to add another maximum, but nothing is certain given the extraordinary qualifying round for tomorrow's final as the top 12 pilots finished within two seconds of each other.

"To be honest, I didn't expect to win quali here today," said Goulian.

"It seemed to take longer to adjust to this track.

"I think if we can do this again tomorrow, we'll be sitting pretty.

"That's the goal – to keep everyone chasing us."

Last year’s overall champion Yoshihide Muroya of Japan commented: "First run I was trying to get the best time, but I pulled up a little early and got a penalty, so in the second run I took it a little bit slower with safer lines.

"Same as Abu Dhabi, I don't care who I'm racing against, I'll just go as fast as I can."

Goulian came out on top finishing with a time of 57.073sec and the track record. 

Fellow American, Kirby Chambliss, was second on the timesheet and looked to be unstoppable until Goulian flew.

Chambliss finished 0.116 seconds behind his compatriot.

Australia’s Matt Hall was third, with Matthias Dolderer of German fourth, and closely behind him were France’s Mika Brageot and Muroya – all six finishing within four tenths of a second of each other.

Home flier Nikolas Ivanoff, known as the "Quick Corsican" moved through 11th fastest.