Maldonado on Misano pole
Pastor Maldonado has secured pole position for this afternoon's World Series by Renault race at Misano
His time of 1:18.517 was only a tenth quicker than Andy Soucek in the B qualifying session, but the Venezuelan has looked like having a clear edge on his opposition throughout practice.
"It looks really good compared to the others," said Maldonado. "I really only had two free laps. I did one quick lap then I slowed to cool the tyres. The next was good enough for pole."
Soucek elected to make a big change to his set-up after his Interwetten team-mate Eric Salignon's disappointing perfomance in the A session. Salignon, the Zolder double winner, will start a lowly 22nd.
Ben Hanley had his best qualifying to date to join Maldonado on the front row after topping the A group. Hanley's performance goes a small way to lift the spirits of his Cram team who have suffered the recent loss of their engineer Kevin Pidcot, who was killed in a road accident in Italy.
"It's a really weird feeling being here without him, you can feel someone is missing," said Hanley.
Sebastian Vettel will start his debut World Series race alongside Soucek in fourth after finishing second to Hanley in the A group.
Having been placed at Carlin by Red Bull instead of the departed Colin Fleming, Formula Three graduate Vettel had no trouble adapting to his new environment.
"At the moment I know I'm racing at here and Spa, after that we'll see," he said. "The car had the potential to be fastest, I was a little unlucky with traffic on one lap and on another quick lap I made a small mistake.
"We should be good in the race, as we're quick on old tyres. The only thing is I'm not sure how easy it is to overtake here."
Alvaro Parente starts fifth for Victory Engineering, ahead of Canadian Sean McIntosh who had headed the A group for a long period. Title contender Borja Garcia could only manage eighth behind Michael Aleshin.
Group A qualifying times:
Pos Driver Team Time 1. Ben Hanley Cram 1:18.782 2. Sebastian Vettel Carlin 1:18.919 + 0.137 3. Sean McIntosh KTR 1:18.936 + 0.154 4. Borja Garcia RC 1:19.232 + 0.450 5. Christian Montanari Prema 1:19.395 + 0.613 6. James Rossiter Pons 1:19.460 + 0.678 7. Alvaro Barba Jenzer 1:19.584 + 0.802 8. Celso Miguez Pons 1:19.874 + 1.092 9. Enrico Toccacelo Eurointernational 1:19.932 + 1.150 10. Steven Kane Epsilon Euskadi 1:19.973 + 1.191 11. Eric Salignon Interwetten 1:20.014 + 1.232 12. Hayanari Shimoda Victory 1:20.079 + 1.297 13. Matteo Meneghello GD 1:20.233 + 1.451 14. Alessandro Bonetti Jenzer 1:20.647 + 1.865
Group B qualifying times:
Pos Driver Team Time 1. Pastor Maldonado Draco 1:18.517 2. Andy Soucek Interwetten 1:18.681 + 0.164 3. Alvaro Parente Victory 1:18.893 + 0.376 4. Michael Aleshin Carlin 1:19.053 + 0.536 5. Davide Valsecchi Epsilon Euskadi 1:19.080 + 0.563 6. Alx Danielsson Comtec 1:19.159 + 0.642 7. Ryo Fukuda Tech 1 1:19.307 + 0.790 8. Gregory Franchi Prema 1:19.541 + 1.024 9. Robbie Kerr KTR 1:19.559 + 1.042 10. Bruce Jouanny RC 1:19.662 + 1.145 11. Patrick Pilet GD 1:19.769 + 1.252 12. Jerome D'Ambrosio Tech 1 1:19.854 + 1.337 13. Milos Pavlovic Cram 1:19.886 + 1.369 14. Carlos Iaconelli Eurointernational 1:19.989 + 1.472 15. Tomas Kostka Draco 1:20.388 + 1.871
Race one starting grid:
Pos Driver Team 1. Pastor Maldonado Draco 2. Ben Hanley Cram 3. Andy Soucek Interwetten 4. Sebastian Vettel Carlin 5. Alvaro Parente Victory 6. Sean McIntosh KTR 7. Michael Aleshin Carlin 8. Borja Garcia RC 9. Davide Valsecchi Epsilon Euskadi 10. Christian Montanari Prema 11. Alx Danielsson Comtec 12. James Rossiter Pons 13. Ryo Fukuda Tech 1 14. Alvaro Barba Jenzer 15. Gregory Franchi Prema 16. Celso Miguez Pons 17. Robbie Kerr KTR 18. Enrico Toccacelo Eurointernational 19. Bruce Jouanny RC 20. Steven Kane Epsilon Euskadi 21. Patrick Pilet GD 22. Eric Salignon Interwetten 23. Jerome D'Ambrosio Tech 1 24. Hayanari Shimoda Victory 25. Milos Pavlovic Cram 26. Matteo Meneghello GD 27. Carlos Iaconelli Eurointernational 28. Alessandro Bonetti Jenzer 29. Tomas Kostka Draco
Share Or Save This Story
Autosport 70: Why Portimao is the right home for the Portuguese GP
FV8 3.5 race winner Orudzhev switches to title-winning AVF team
How the post-Renault 3.5 series is shaping up
The dilemma Bagnaia's MotoGP race engineer faces
How Rally Islas Canarias could crown another new WRC winner
Dodds: Formula E helping F1 understand new regs, recent changes "very strong" for motorsport
Why Ogura’s Yamaha move is Honda’s cruellest lesson
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments