Jakes will be joined on the front of this afternoon's feature race by joint championship leader Edoardo Mortara.
In a wet qualifying session, the second group in which Jakes was seeded was red-flagged with four minutes remaining, with the Englishman provisionally fastest on a time of 1:27.919.
On the restart, half a dozen drivers improved on Jakes's effort, but the Guisley driver responded with almost two seconds less in the drying conditions.
Italian Mortara toppled Jakes's ART teammate Nico Hulkenberg with less than a minute on the clocks in the first group.
Christian Vietoris could only manage third in the group for Mucke, having been fastest in both dry practice sessions on Friday.
Vietoris was lucky to survive a near miss with the tyre barriers, and finished over a second slower than Mortara's time. Jon Lancaster was less fortunate, and crashed at the Buisson hairpin when placed fourth.
Finn Mika Maki, tied for the series lead with Mortara, kept his title chances stoked with third place on the grid.
Franck Mailleux was the highest placed of the six home drivers, and will start in fifth, directly behind Maki.
It is an all French fourth row with SG's Yann Clairay heading Richard Philippe who made an impressive showing for Carlin.
Further down the grid, Cong Fu Cheng has a busy weekend in store, as he combines F3 with his rookie initiation at the Le Mans test day.
Cheng's LMP1 team Saulnier have laid on a private jet after today's race in order for the Chinese driver to complete the required laps at La Sarthe on Sunday morning, before jetting back to the Midi-Pyrenees to fulfil his commitments with RC Motorsport.
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