Jousse takes maiden pole at Estoril

Spaniard Miguel Molina joins Jousse on the front row at Parente's expense. Ben Hanley, Parente's championship rival, lines up third on the grid, ahead alongside the penalised Portuguese.

"This gives me a lot of confidence for the race, although I am disappointed for Alvaro," said Jousse. "My objective is to take maximum points and also help Alvaro in the championship because Hanley is right behind me."

Parente, who hails from Porto, had many well wishers to offer up sympathy for his plight.

"They changed the white line of the exit of the pit lane from free practice to qualifying, and I thought it was the same as yesterday," said Parente. "It wasn't if they moved it a little, it was by 50 metres.

"It's so stupid, I would accept the penalty more readily if I had been speeding coming into the pitlane, because it would be dangerous, but not on the exit. Anyway, rules are rules."

The B group were first out on track and provided the majority of the session's entertainment. Mikhail Aleshin set the early running before dropping a wheel onto the dust at the exit of Turn Three and spinning harmlessly.

Ben Hanley underlined the improvement in qualifying performance he has made during the season and eclipsed the Carlin driver's time, only for the Russian to respond with a 1:26.636 with four minutes remaining.

In the space of one minute the names of Alvaro Barba and James Walker moved to the top of the time sheets, with a 1:26.603 and 1:25.507s respectively. Aleshin returned to provisional pole with his next tour, but with several cars out on hot laps was swiftly bumped to fourth behind Hanley fastest, Barba second and Walker third.

The final minute produced a fitting climax to one of the most competitive sessions of the season. Jousse moved into top spot before Aleshin improved on the Frenchman's time by a tenth on a 1:25.890, only for Hanley to shade them both with a 1:25.878.

Jousse had one final response, setting the fastest time in the group with 1:25.782 with ten seconds of the 20 minute session left on the clocks.

Pippa Mann caused the A group to be red-flagged after six minutes when her Cram entry suffered a hydraulic failure at Turn Four. "The team have been fighting gearbox problems since Thursday," said Mann, "and as I tried to move the car for the marshals the clutch then exploded."

Moments earlier Johannes Theobald, filling in for the injured Alessandro Ciompi at Eurointernational, had put a significant amount of dust and gravel on the circuit through an off-track excursion, although the German was able to recover to the pits without damage.

Red Bull drivers Davide Valsecchi and Canadian debutant Robert Wickens, replacing Michael Ammermueller at Carlin, had a wheel-to-wheel dice in dispute of track position. Valsecchi won few friends with his tactic of one fast lap followed by a slow lap to cool the tyres and find a clear run on the circuit.

"In Atlantics drivers race with more courtesy," said Wickens, "I guess that's just the way it is over here, and I'll give it back as good as I get. My biggest problem was adapting to the carbon brakes, and I flat-spotted some of my tyres today."

Parente displaced Pons driver Molina's fastest time in the group after fifteen minutes, and the local hero further lowered his time by three tenths to edge Jousse out of, what had looked set to be, pole position.

"On my last run I had set the fastest first sector," said Molina, "only to lose it all at the end of the lap when I was blocked by a Red Bull car. With Parente losing his best time, it is good for me because with just two meetings of the season to go I really need to show well to find a good drive for next year."

Pos  Driver            Team                   Time
 1.  Julien Jousse     Tech 1 Racing          1:25.762
 2.  Miguel Molina     Pons Racing            1:25.889  + 0.127
 3.  Benjamin Hanley   Prema Powerteam        1:25.879  + 0.117
 4.  Alvaro Parente    Tech 1 Racing          1:26.000  + 0.238
 5.  Mikhail Aleshin   Carlin Motorsport      1:25.890  + 0.128
 6.  B. Baguette       KTR                    1:26.113  + 0.351
 7.  F. Albuquerque    Epsilon Euskadi        1:25.991  + 0.229
 8.  Fairuz Fauzy      Cram Competition       1:26.161  + 0.399
 9.  Alvaro Barba      International Draco    1:26.204  + 0.442
10.  G. van der Garde  Victory Engineering    1:26.259  + 0.497
11.  James Walker      Fortec Motorsport      1:26.230  + 0.468
12.  Guillaume Moreau  KTR                    1:26.507  + 0.745
13.  Michael Herck     Red Devil Team Comtec  1:26.451  + 0.689
14.  Milos Pavlovic    International Draco    1:26.529  + 0.767
15.  Marco Bonanomi    RC Motorsport          1:26.607  + 0.845
16.  Davide Valsecchi  Epsilon Euskadi        1:26.530  + 0.768
17.  Clivio Piccione   RC Motorsport          1:26.689  + 0.927
18.  Robert Wickens    Carlin Motorsport      1:26.696  + 0.934
19.  F. Vervisch       GD Racing              1:26.699  + 0.937
20.  Richard Philippe  Fortec Motorsport      1:26.810  + 1.048
21.  Alejandro Nunez   Red Devil Team Comtec  1:26.776  + 1.014
22.  Carlos Iaconelli  Pons Racing            1:26.883  + 1.121
23.  P. Di Sabatino    GD Racing              1:27.098  + 1.336
24.  Salvador Duran    Interwetten.com        1:27.100  + 1.338
25.  Daniel Move       Interwetten.com        1:27.933  + 2.171
26.  Xavier Maassen    Prema Powerteam        1:27.644  + 1.882
27.  Julian Theobald   EuroInternational      1:28.877  + 3.115
28.  J. Theobald       EuroInternational      1:28.347  + 2.585
29.  Pippa Mann        Cram Competition       no time      -