Karthikeyan shines

"The car wasn't perfect by a long way," said Karthikeyan. "I had understeer and made two mistakes but I think I have proved a point."

Karthikeyan is out of the running for the championship and says he is likely to use a 'joker' set of new tyres in the first 'sprint' race.

Former Champ Car driver Tiago Monteiro (Carlin Motorsport) claimed pole position for race two. The Portuguese driver needs a couple of wins to stop championship leader Heikki Kovalainen sealing the title this weekend. Monteiro will start the first race third and said he would have been on the front row without the many red and yellow flags playing against him.

But it was Kovaleinen who had the real disaster with the flags. He came out late in the first session after steering problems that had plagued him during free practice on Friday, returned for qualifying. The Finn was thus forced to set his best time while the yellow flags were waving. As a result the stewards excluded the Finnish Pons Racing driver from the session.

Kovalainen will start the 'sprint' race from the back of the grid and is unlikely to take the championship title early on. He did however salvage third place on the grid for the second race although he still felt that the car "wasn't working at all."

Narain Karthikeyan (RC Motorsport), 1m23.118s
Jean-Christophe Ravier (Epsilon Euskadi), +0.247s
Tiago Monteiro (Carlin Motorsport), +0.498s
Felix Porteiro (Epsilon Euskadi), +0.612s
Enrique Bernoldi (GD Racing), +0.674s
Didier Andre (KTR), +0.761s

Tiago Monteiro (Carlin Motorsport), 1m23.262s
Narain Karthikeyan (RC Motorsport), +0.129s
Heikki Kovalainen (Pons Racing) +0.190s
Didier Andre (KTR), +0.362s
Jean-Christophe Ravier (Epsilon Euskadi), +0.494s
Adrian Valles (Pons Racing), +0.549s