Vitaly Petrov stormed qualifying today at Monza for round 9 of the GP2 series to take pole position and keep his championship hopes alive.
The day had started off bad after developing gearbox problems and Petrov suffering from an elbow injury which caused a lot of pain, but the young Russian turned things around and posted top times from the start of the session and finished it 0.391s up from the second place van der Garde.
Second place van der Garde was delighted with his qualifying performance and is looking forward to the race tomorrow: “It was good. The track was quite quick at the start and I set a really good lap on the first run. The car felt really good and we keep improving all the time. I think it will be an interesting race tomorrow with the weather and also starting right at the front which I have not done so far this season. I think we should be really quick in the race and have a great chance of a good result in the main race.”
Championship leader Nico Hulkenberg took third place and will start alongside Sergio Perez.
The two Racing Engineering cars of Lucas di Grassi and Dani Clos both took a 10 place grid drop after being given the penalties in Belgium two weeks ago.
Pos Driver Team Time Gap 1. Vitaly Petrov Addax 1m30.007s 2. Giedo van der Garde iSport 1m30.398s + 0.391s 3. Nico Hulkenberg ART 1m30.436s + 0.429s 4. Sergio Perez Arden 1m30.460s + 0.453s 5. Pastor Maldonado ART 1m30.596s + 0.589s 6. Roldan Rodriguez Piquet 1m30.634s + 0.627s 7. Diego Nunes iSport 1m30.729s + 0.722s 8. Davide Valsecchi Addax 1m30.768s + 0.761s 9. Andreas Zuber Coloni 1m30.803s + 0.796s 10. Javier Villa Super Nova 1m30.831s + 0.824s 11. Alberto Valerio Piquet 1m30 911s + 0.904s 12. Davide Rigon Trident 1m30.922s + 0.915s 13. Luca Filippi Super Nova 1m31.024s + 1.017s 14. Lucas di Grassi Racing Engineering 1m30.504s + 0.497s * 15. Johnny Cecotto DPR 1m31.080s + 1.073s 16. Luiz Razia Coloni 1m31.112s + 1.105s 17. Alvaro Parente Ocean 1m31.160s + 1.153s 18. Kamui Kobayashi DAMS 1m31.303s + 1.296s 19. Karun Chandhok Ocean 1m31.325s + 1.318s 20 Michael Herck DPR 1m31.347s + 1.340s 21. Jerome d'Ambrosio DAMS 1m31.455s + 1.448s 22. Edoardo Mortara Arden 1m31.887s + 1.880s 23. Ricardo Teixeira Trident 1m32.640s + 2.633s 24. Dani Clos Racing Engineering 1m31.021s + 1.014s *
* 10 place grid penalty
All Timing Unofficial
Photo Credit: Andrew Ferraro / GP2 Series Media
