Duran takes pole, then crashes
Salvador Duran grabbed pole position for Sunday's World Series by Renault race at Monaco and then promptly crashed his car into the tyres at the Ste Devote first corner
The Mexican had just nicked the top spot from Alvaro Parente in a session full of incidents - the Portuguese also crashing as he fought to reclaim pole. Clivio Piccone was third fastest in the session, yet he too made contact with the wall, taking the rear wing off his car.
But due to the split-session qualifying system, Piccione will line up in fifth - the even numbered grid slots going to the drivers in the first session, which was headed by BMW Formula One test driver Sebastian Vettel.
The young German was pretty much unchallenged in the first session, but his best lap of 1:25.966 was two-tenths slower than Duran's best effort. Milos Pavlovic was second, so will line up fourth, while a last-lap effort put Brit Ben Hanley third, sixth in the starting line-up.
Only 26 cars are allowed to start the race, so there were two non-qualifiers in each session. In the first one, Michael Herck spun into the wall early on ensuring he wouldn't take part, while Danill Move didn't have the pace to dislodged Julien Jousse, despite the Frenchman shunting.
In the second session, Xavier Maassen did 'a Duran' and crashed after setting his best lap, but very late improvements from Richard Philippe and Alessandro Ciompi meant Maassen joined Pippa Mann in the bottom two.
Pos Driver Team Time 1. Alvaro Parente Tech 1 Racing 1:25.815 2. Sebastian Vettel Carlin Motorsport 1:25.966 + 0.151 3. Clivio Piccione RC Motorsport 1:26.172 + 0.357 4. Milos Pavlovic International Draco 1:26.196 + 0.381 5. Salvador Duran Interwetten.com 1:26.191 + 0.376 6. Benjamin Hanley Prema Powerteam 1:26.404 + 0.589 7. G.van der Garde Victory Engineering 1:26.670 + 0.855 8. Davide Valsecchi Epsilon Euskadi 1:26.720 + 0.905 9. Michael Aleshin Carlin Motorsport 1:26.799 + 0.984 10. Guillaume Moreau KTR 1:26.897 + 1.082 11. Marco Bonanomi RC Motorsport 1:27.254 + 1.439 12. Fairuz Fauzy Cram Competition 1:26.957 + 1.142 13. Charlie Kimball Victory Engineering 1:27.269 + 1.454 14. F.Albuquerque Epsilon Euskadi 1:27.422 + 1.607 15. Alvaro Barba International Draco 1:27.486 + 1.671 16. Miguel Molina Pons Racing 1:27.738 + 1.923 17. Celso Miguez EuroInternational 1:27.691 + 1.876 18. B.Baguette KTR 1:27.791 + 1.976 19. James Walker Fortec Motorsport 1:27.752 + 1.937 20. Carlos Iaconelli Pons Racing 1:28.005 + 2.190 21. Alejandro Nunez Red Devil Team Comtec 1:27.971 + 2.156 22. Ricardo Risatti GD Racing 1:28.193 + 2.378 23. Xavier Maassen Prema Powerteam 1:28.611 + 2.796 24. P.Di Sabatino GD Racing 1:28.404 + 2.589 25. A.Ciompi EuroInternational 1:29.062 + 3.247 26. Julien Jousse Tech 1 Racing 1:28.826 + 3.011 27. Richard Philippe Fortec Motorsport 1:29.295 + 3.480 28. Daniel Move Interwetten.com 1:29.196 + 3.381 29. Pippa Mann Cram Competition 1:29.586 + 3.771 30. Michael Herck Red Devil Team Comtec 1:31.257 + 5.442
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