Qualifying: Cochet clinches pole

The Signature driver set his time in Saturday morning's qualifying period when oil on the track made it difficult for many cars to improve their times in the afternoon session. Cochet's pole lap of 1m10.332s beats the 1m10.491s standard set by India's Narain Karthikeyan in last year.

"I'm extremely happy to be on pole position for tomorrow's race," said a delighted Cochet afterwards. "It's always important to be on the front row for a street race. The oil on the track this afternoon made it impossible to improve so I just concentrated on keeping my tyres clean for tomorrow's race."

British driver Andy Priaulx narrowly missed out on securing the top slot, but managed to improve his lap in the dying seconds of the final qualifying period. The Promatecme driver beat his best time of the morning to move to the top of his qualifying group but was ultimately unable to overhaul Cochet:

"The car was definitely capable of a faster time," he admitted. "I could have pushed the tyres a little further, but it was a good lap and it would have been difficult to improve."

German Formula 3 champion Toshihiro Kaneishi lined up third fastest, but was another who failed to improve his time in the slower afternoon period. Italian driver Enrico Toccacelo grabbed fourth spot after wringing a top time from his Opel BSR Team car with only minutes remaining in the final session. Ulsterman Derek Hayes starts fifth despite damaging a hub and wishbone in the opening qualifying period.

Friday's pacesetter Paolo Montin will start a lowly 17th after hitting the barriers in the morning period and suffering engine failure in the afternoon. Another high-profile casualty was Manor Motorsport's Mark Taylor. The Englishman was running as high as fourth in his opening session but lost control into a fast lefthander and hit the barriers heavily. The impact destroyed the gearbox of his Dallara and he will be a non-starter tomorrow.

For full qualifying results, click here.