Asmer tops Thursday qualifying

The Estonian, who is competing in the Macau Grand Prix for the second time, put in his best lap with 10 minutes of the session remaining - and right before two red flags left his rivals unable to respond to his performance.

The first red flag was brought out by Signature Plus' Charlie Kimball, who crashed heavily at Fishermen's Bend. The American climbed out of the car unaided and was unhurt in the incident.

Then just a few minutes after the session had restarted, Japanese Formula Three champion Adrian Sutil brought qualifying to a halt for a second time when he also shunted at Fishermen's Bend. Although he remained in the car for several minutes after the accident, he eventually climbed out without injury. With only two minutes of the session remaining it was decided to abandon qualifying.

That decision left the morning's free practice pace setter Kohei Hirate with the second fastest time.

"The red flags meant I could not respond to Marko's time, but I am sure there is plenty more to come from me tomorrow, so we should go quicker," he said.

Romain Grosjean was third fastest overall, ahead of Kamui Kobayashi and Fabio Carbone. British Formula Three champion Mike Conway was sixth fastest, with Richard Antinucci seventh and Roberto Streit eighth. Kimball still managed to take ninth place on the timesheets despite his accident.

Formula Three Euroseries champion Paul di Resta was pretty happy with his tenth place after damaging his front right tyre when he ran over debris at the hairpin and locked up.

"I can't really complain," said the Scotsman. "Of course I would like to be right at the top but considering the number of laps I have done, I am pretty satisfied."

Thursday qualifying times:

Pos  Driver             Make                        Time
 1.  Marko Asmer        Dallara Mercedes-HWA    2:13.965
 2.  Kohei Hirate       Dallara Mercedes-HWA     + 0.291
 3.  Romain Grosjean    Dallara Mercedes-HWA     + 0.439
 4.  Kamui Kobayashi    Dallara Mercedes-HWA     + 0.535
 5.  Fabio Carbone      Dallara Nissan           + 0.780
 6.  Mike Conway        Dallara Mercedes-HWA     + 0.790
 7.  Richard Antinucci  Dallara Mercedes-HWA     + 1.277
 8.  Robert Streit      Dallara Mercedes-HWA     + 1.484
 9.  Charlie Kimball    Dallara Mercedes-HWA     + 1.514
10.  Paul Di Resta      Dallara Mercedes-HWA     + 1.628
11.  Kodai Tsukakoshi   Dallara Mercedes-HWA     + 1.992
12.  Maro Engel         Dallara Honda-Mugen NB   + 2.137
13.  Sebastien Buemi    Dallara Honda-Mugen NB   + 2.315
14.  Kazuki Nakajima    Dallara Mercedes-HWA     + 2.337
15.  Kazuya Oshima      Dallara Toyota-TOM'S     + 2.610
16.  Sebastian Vettel   Dallara Honda-Mugen NB   + 2.655
17.  Adrian Sutil       Dallara Toyota-TOM'S     + 3.013
18.  Oliver Jarvis      Dallara Honda-Mugen NB   + 3.156
19.  James Jakes        Dallara Mercedes-HWA     + 3.279
20.  Stephen Jelley     Dallara Mercedes-HWA     + 3.355
21.  Daisuke Ikeda      Dallara Toyota-TOM'S     + 3.568
22.  Yelmer Buurman     Dallara Mercedes-HWA     + 4.128
23.  Jonathan Kennard   Dallara Honda-Mugen NB   + 4.246
24.  Mauro Massironi    Dallara Honda-Mugen NB   + 4.689
25.  Roldan Rodriguez   Dallara Mercedes-HWA     + 5.183
26.  Michael Ho         Dallara Honda-Mugen NB   + 6.149
27.  Maximo Cortes      Dallara Mercedes-HWA     + 6.478
28.  Rodolfo Avila      Dallara Honda-Mugen NB   + 6.519
29.  James Winslow      Dallara Toyota-TOM'S     + 6.734
30.  Cheong Lou Meng    Dallara Honda-Mugen NB  + 10.153
31.  Lei Kit Meng       Dallara Opel-Spiess     + 10.697
32.  Jo Merszei         Dallara Toyota-Tom's    + 13.743