Sutil stars in the wet

With the track drying throughout the 30-minute session, the best times were recorded at the end, and the young German was in the right place at the right time to deny Briton Jamie Green a double pole. Nevertheless, the championship leader will still line up on the front row for Saturday's race.

Brazilian Roberto Streit secured his best grid position of the year in third as did Japanese Katsuyuki Hiranaka, who starts fourth. Championship contender Nicolas Lapierre went off on his last lap, but lines up fifth, but fellow title hopefuls Nico Rosberg and Alexandre Premat struggled. Rosberg will face a tough afternoon's work from 17th, two places behind Premat in 15th.

Lewis Hamilton did well to set the third best time, but events once again conspired against him and he was penalised for running off the track and had his best effort disqualified leaving him back in sixth. Formula Ford champion Tom Kimber-Smith had his best session to date and will start from a competitive 12th.


Adrian Sutil Dallara-Mercedes 1m20.843s
Jamie Green Dallara-Mercedes 1m20.898s
Roberto Streit Dallara-Opel 1m20.971s
Katsuyuki Hiranaka Dallara-Opel 1m21.094s
Nicolas Lapierre Dallara-Opel 1m21.179s
Lewis Hamilton Dallara-Mercedes 1m21.186s
Eric Salignon Dallara-Mercedes 1m21.290s
Robert Kubica Dallara-Mercedes 1m21.372s