Friday, May 9, 2008

Maldonado grabs pole in Barcelona

Maldonado grabs pole in Barcelona

Pastor Maldonado scored his second career GP2 Series pole position at Barcelona today, the first of the new era with the advent of the new chassis, for Piquet Sports.

Maldonado was already in the pits and looking forward to celebrating a dominant pole when Super Nova's Alvaro Parente suddenly produced a flyer that was quicker than the Venezuelan in sectors one and two - only for him to lose four-tenths in the final section.

Still, Parente's lap was good enough for second, just under two-tenths slower than the pole time. Practice pacesetter Andi Zuber will start third for the Piquet Sports squad, although his best effort was some six-tenths slower than his team-mate.

Bruno Senna will start fourth, but he ruined his chances of improving on that when he spun into the gravel on the exit of Turn 2 before his final run. He will start ahead of Giorgio Pantano, who set the early pace for Racing Engineering, and Adrian Valles (FMS).

Karun Chandhok produced some heroics in the second iSport car to take seventh in a car that team boss Paul Jackson admitted "wasn't 100 per cent" after his practice shunt this morning. Vitaly Petrov will start eighth for Campos, ahead of Javier Villa (Racing Engineering) and Mike Conway (Trident).

The session was red-flagged 10 minutes in when Sebastien Buemi suffered a huge crash at Turn 9. He was forced to avoid a dawdling BCN car by taking to the kerb on the high-speed exit, but he hit a bump and spun across the track into the tyrewall. His Arden car was briefly flicked up onto two wheels, before landing heavily. He will start 20th tomorrow.

In other incidents, GP2 Asia champion Romain Grosjean suffered a spectacular engine failure, while his ART Grand Prix team-mate Luca Filippi also joined him outside the top 10 after a surprising lack of pace.

Alberto Valerio (Durango) and Kamui Kobayashi (DAMS) got involved in a post-session spat that involved the Brazilian swerving at him and repeatedly waving his middle finger in Kamui's general direction as they returned to the pits.

Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps 1. Pastor Maldonado Piquet Sports 1:27.547 15 2. Alvaro Parente Super Nova 1:27.705 +0.158 16 3. Andi Zuber Piquet Sports 1:28.155 +0.608 15 4. Bruno Senna iSport 1:28.273 +0.726 10 5. Giorgio Pantano Racing Engineering 1:28.290 +0.743 15 6. Adrian Valles FMS 1:28.323 +0.776 15 7. Karun Chandhok iSport 1:28.385 +0.838 15 8. Vitaly Petrov Campos 1:28.423 +0.876 17 9. Javier Villa Racing Engineering 1:28.562 +1.015 15 10. Mike Conway Trident 1:28.622 +1.075 15 11. Romain Grosjean ART 1:28.684 +1.137 14 12. Davide Valsecchi Durango 1:28.713 +1.166 17 13. Kamui Kobayashi DAMS 1:28.799 +1.252 16 14. Luca Filippi ART 1:28.868 +1.321 15 15. Ben Hanley Campos 1:28.889 +1.342 14 16. Ho-Pin Tung Trident 1:28.937 +1.390 16 17. Alberto Valerio Durango 1:29.338 +1.791 17 18. Yelmer Buurman Arden 1:29.339 +1.792 18 19. Christian Bakkerud Super Nova 1:29.394 +1.847 16 20. Sebastien Buemi Arden 1:29.478 +1.931 5 21. Milos Pavlovic BCN 1:29.618 +2.071 12 22. Jerome D'Ambrosio DAMS 1:29.628 +2.081 17 23. Paolo Nocera BCN 1:29.708 +2.161 15 24. Roldan Rodriguez FMS 1:29.762 +2.215 16 25. Diego Nunes DPR 1:30.343 +2.796 11 26. Giacomo Ricci DPR 1:30.443 +2.896 13

  • Pantano grabs pole, Valsecchi shunts
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