Charles Pic beats Luca Filippi to GP2 pole at the Nurburgring
Charles Pic came out on top of a three-way fight to take pole position for the first GP2 race of the weekend at the Nurburgring
The Addax driver, who moved to the top of the times with just four minutes remaining, robbed series veteran Luca Filippi of the top spot for his 100th start in the main series.
But Filippi, who waited longer than the rest of his rivals before emerging from the pits on his second set of tyres five minutes from the end, attacked with a faster lap in the final minute. The Italian managed to improve his time, but not his position and will start second in his first race back at Coloni.
Pic could be forgiven for feeling a slight sense of justice though, as two of his impressive-looking laps in the early stages of qualifying were ruined by traffic in the final sector.
Behind them, Romain Grosjean (DAMS) had to settle for third after a sequence of laps where he was clearly on the ragged edge more than usual. He will share the second row with countryman Jules Bianchi, although the ART driver was more than three tenths adrift of the top three.
Giedo van der Garde bounced back from a free practice session curtailed by throttle problems to put the second Addax car in the top five, just fractions ahead of Fabio Leimer, Alvaro Parente and Esteban Gutierrez.
Marcus Ericsson and Luiz Razia completed the top 10, followed by title contender Sam Bird, who had to settle for 11th.
The Briton had a disrupted session, as he had hot laps ruined either by traffic or small errors of his own which prevented him from stringing together the sort of lap time his best sectors suggested he was capable of. Michael Herck was deemed to have impeded the iSport driver and was subsequently handed a three-place grid penalty.
Pos Driver Team Time Gap 1. Charles Pic Addax 1m40.317s 2. Luca Filippi Coloni 1m40.393s + 0.076s 3. Romain Grosjean DAMS 1m40.431s + 0.114s 4. Jules Bianchi ART 1m40.755s + 0.438s 5. Giedo van der Garde Addax 1m40.781s + 0.464s 6. Fabio Leimer Rapax 1m40.794s + 0.477s 7. Alvaro Parente Carlin 1m40.803s + 0.486s 8. Esteban Gutierrez ART 1m40.817s + 0.500s 9. Marcus Ericsson iSport 1m40.859s + 0.542s 10. Luiz Razia AirAsia 1m40.968s + 0.651s 11. Sam Bird iSport 1m40.970s + 0.653s 12. Dani Clos Racing Engineering 1m40.998s + 0.681s 13. Christian Vietoris Racing Engineering 1m41.101s + 0.784s 14. Adam Carroll Super Nova 1m41.141s + 0.824s 15. Stefano Coletti Trident 1m41.166s + 0.849s 16. Michael Herck Coloni 1m41.059s + 0.742s* 17. Kevin Mirocha Ocean 1m41.268s + 0.951s 18. Davide Valsecchi AirAsia 1m41.354s + 1.037s 19. Josef Kral Arden 1m41.356s + 1.039s 20. Rodolfo Gonzalez Trident 1m41.489s + 1.172s 21. Johnny Cecotto Ocean 1m41.489s + 1.172s 22. Jolyon Palmer Arden 1m41.594s + 1.277s 23. Pal Varhaug DAMS 1m41.633s + 1.316s 24. Julian Leal Rapax 1m41.894s + 1.577s 25. Fairuz Fauzy Super Nova 1m41.966s + 1.649s 26. Max Chilton Carlin 1m42.783s + 2.466s * Three-place penalty
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