Pantano grabs pole, Valsecchi shunts

Giorgio Pantano will start from pole position in Saturday's GP2 Series feature race at Istanbul Park in Turkey, but Friday's qualifying session was marred by a huge crash for Davide Valsecchi.

Right at the end of the session, Valsecchi's Durango car hit the tyrewall at the left-hander at the end of the back straight so hard that it was completely enveloped in tyres, making it hard for the rescue crews to attend to him.

The Italian was unable to climb out of the car, but was moving his hands in the cockpit. He has since been taken to the medical centre to be evaluated.

It was a sad end to a brilliant qualifying session in which Pantano was the class of the field, taking pole by just over a quarter of a second.

"My car was perfect," he said. "It's really good here and the grip from the Bridgestone tyres was so consistent. Thanks to everyone."

Andi Zuber will start second for Piquet Sports, ahead of perhaps the star of qualifying, Adam Carroll. Called up by FMS to replace Adrian Valles, Carroll got faster and faster as the session progressed, and will start third.

Fourth was Romain Grosjean of ART, ahead of Bruno Senna (iSport), who was balked by traffic on numerous occasions, and Pastor Maldonado (Piquet) - who was on a very quick lap when he got the final sector wrong.

Karun Chandhok will start seventh, ahead of Javier Villa, Valsecchi (if he's fit to race) and Vitaly Petrov (Campos), who struggled for much of the session before improving late on.

Pos Driver Team Time Gap 1. Giorgio Pantano Racing Engineering 1:32.659 2. Andreas Zuber Piquet 1:32.913 +0.254 3. Adam Carroll FMS 1:33.141 +0.482 4. Romain Grosjean ART 1:33.248 +0.589 5. Bruno Senna iSport 1:33.449 +0.790 6. Pastor Maldonado Piquet 1:33.451 +0.792 7. Karun Chandhok iSport 1:33.703 +1.044 8. Javier Villa Racing Engineering 1:33.813 +1.154 9. Davide Valsecchi Durango 1:33.841 +1.182 10. Vitaly Petrov Campos 1:33.896 +1.237 11. Jerome D:Ambrosio DAMS 1:33.948 +1.289 12. Ben Hanley Campos 1:33.957 +1.298 13. Adrian Valles BCN 1:34.006 +1.347 14. Andy Soucek Super Nova 1:34.064 +1.405 15. Mike Conway Trident 1:34.170 +1.511 16. Sebastien Buemi Arden 1:34.173 +1.514 17. Yelmer Buurman Arden 1:34.186 +1.527 18. Luca Filippi ART 1:34.366 +1.707 19. Ho-Pin Tung Trident 1:34.506 +1.847 20. Diego Nunes DPR 1:34.617 +1.958 21. Alvaro Parente Super Nova 1:34.620 +1.961 22. Kamui Kobayashi DAMS 1:34.667 +2.008 23. Alberto Valerio Durango 1:34.678 +2.019 24. Roldan Rodriguez FMS 1:34.698 +2.039 25. Milos Pavlovic BCN 1:35.398 +2.739 26. Giacomo Ricci DPR 1:35.878 +3.219

Maldonado grabs pole in Barcelona