Aleshin claims maiden pole at Monza

The Russian comprehensively eclipsed the nearest rival in his group, series debutant Giedo van der Garde, by six tenths of a second.

Van der Garde inherits his position after French newcomer Julien Jousse was stripped of his times for a yellow flag infringement. It was a blow for Jousse whose pace has been the surprise of the weekend. 

Afterwards, Aleshin was full of praise for his Carlin team. "Everyone has worked so hard to find this set-up, we seem to be gaining time everywhere over the opposition," he said.

Marco Bonanomi topped the A group in what was a much closer affair.

The Italian, on home soil with Italian team RC Motorsport, held off a series of late charges by Sebastian Vettel by just four thousandths of a second.

"It's a perfect start," said Bonanomi, "but we will need to change the car quite a lot for the race, we have been going well over a single lap, but we're losing a lot of speed following people in the slipstream."

Monza is the curtain raiser for the series' introduction of points for qualifying. Aleshin and Bonanomi's efforts are rewarded with four points each, with two points each going to van der Garde and Vettel.

Fifth place qualifier Bertrand Baguette and series returnee Alvaro Parente in sixth also receive one point each.

Parente headed the first group for much of the session, and was only disposed of from the top spot when Bonanomi put in a 1:37.186 with four minutes remaining. The performance underlines the progress he and teammate Jousse have made with French outfit Tech1 over the winter.

"We're on the up," confirmed Jousse, "but coming from Formula Renault my biggest worry is how I'm going to feel after my first race in these cars driving for 45 minutes."

After the drivers had access to over seven hours of track time on Thursday, the session ran relatively incident free.

However, Jersey-man James Walker's day did not go to plan when his Fortec machine ground to a halt at the Ascari chicane.

"I was on my third lap and suddenly had a complete loss of drive," said James. Team-boss Richard Dutton later admitted they had been hit by an electronic failure in the engine.

Reigning champions Comtec's title defence also failed to get under way smoothly. Jaap van Lagen will start outside of a representative position having spun into the gravel entering the Parabolica corner.

"I was just starting to get some heat into my tyres, and beginning to push when the rears locked-up and around I went," said Jaap. The Dutchman endeavoured to remain optimistic.

"It wasn't an accident in that at least I didn't hit the tyres. I've started 16th here before and finished 9th, so if there's an accident at the first corner, and I pass a few people, I could still finish in the top ten and win the reverse grid race tomorrow!"

Pos  Driver            Team                        Time
 1.  Mikhail Aleshin   Carlin Motorsport           1:36.145        
 2.  Marco Bonanomi    RC Motorsport               1:36.967 + 0.822
 3.  Sebastian Vettel  Carlin Motorsport           1:36.971 + 0.826
 4.  G.van der Garde   Victory Engineering SpA     1:37.131 + 0.986
 5.  Alvaro Parente    Tech 1 Racing               1:37.085 + 0.940
 6.  B.Baguette        KTR                         1:37.429 + 1.284
 7.  Guillaume Moreau  KTR                         1:37.400 + 1.255
 8.  Fairuz Fauzy      Cram Competition            1:37.430 + 1.285
 9.  Alvaro Barba      International Draco Racing  1:37.424 + 1.279
10.  Clivio Piccione   RC Motorsport               1:37.431 + 1.286
11.  Carlos Iaconelli  Pons Racing                 1:37.473 + 1.328
12.  F.Albuquerque     Epsilon Euskadi             1:37.445 + 1.300
13.  Charlie Kimball   Victory Engineering SpA     1:37.485 + 1.340
14.  Milos Pavlovic    International Draco Racing  1:37.447 + 1.302
15.  Davide Valsecchi  Epsilon Euskadi             1:37.505 + 1.360
16.  Salvador Duran    Interwetten.com             1:37.457 + 1.312
17.  Richard Philippe  Fortec Motorsport           1:37.539 + 1.394
18.  Benjamin Hanley   Prema Powerteam             1:37.645 + 1.500
19.  P.Di Sabatino     GD Racing                   1:37.706 + 1.561
20.  Ricardo Risatti   GD Racing                   1:37.717 + 1.572
21.  Alejandro Nunez   Red Devil Team Comtec       1:37.941 + 1.796
22.  Miguel Molina     Pons Racing                 1:37.762 + 1.617
23.  A.Ciompi          EuroInternational           1:38.635 + 2.490
24.  Celso Miguez      EuroInternational           1:37.803 + 1.658
25.  Daniel Move       Interwetten.com             1:38.810 + 2.665
26.  Jaap van Lagen    Red Devil Team Comtec       1:38.184 + 2.039
27.  Xavier Maassen    Prema Powerteam             1:38.959 + 2.814
28.  James Walker      Fortec Motorsport           1:43.356 + 7.211
29.  Pippa Mann        Cram Competition            1:39.066 + 2.921
30.  Julien Jousse     Tech 1 Racing               1:36.715 Penalty