Parente takes Donington pole

Quickest in both practice sessions yesterday, the Portuguese has again asserted himself in qualifying, the four points achieved through securing pole position enough to wrest the championship lead away from Sebastian Vettel.

Cram Competition's Fairuz Fauzy posted the quickest time in the earlier B group's session, continuing the strong recent form which took him to pole last time out at Spa-Francorchamps. Alvaro Barba lines up third for Draco, joined on the second row by Julien Jousse.

Fauzy set the early running in the B session, but the times improved markedly on each run as the Michelin tyres took until their fourth or fifth laps to reach their optimum temperature.

Epsilon Eskadi's Filipe Albuquerque initially challenged in second, before running wide at the Old Hairpin and taking a high speed spin on the grass exit. Albuquerque was able to rejoin unharmed, and it was left to Tech 1's Julien Jousse to provide Fauzy's competition.

With eight of the 20 minute session completed, Fauzy held a huge advantage, his time of a 1:18.975 comparing handsomely to Jousse's 1:19.807.

Ben Hanley, third in the standings and hoping to challenge Parente for the championship, moved up to second and then set the fastest first sector on his next tour. Disastrously for the Briton, the lap was never completed as the he found the gravel on the exit of Coppice. With the Dallara stranded in a dangerous position the session was red-flagged. Hanley was stripped of his best time for causing the stoppage and was prevented from playing any further role in proceedings.

On the restart, the times again looked to have stagnated as the tyres worked into their prime. Reigning South American Formula Three champion Luiz Razia, making his debut for GD Racing, was denied a second run when he suffered an engine failure.

Despite improving on his best effort, Jousse had no answer to Fauzy who left the benchmark on a 1:18.058 as the session drew to close. With the chequered flag flying Jousse was demoted a position by Bonanami who shot up from fifth spot in his RC Motorsport machine.

In the A group, Spaniard Alvaro Barba and Kurt Molleken's KTR pairing of Bertrand Baguette and Guillaume Moreau occupied the top three positions after ten minutes. Yelmer Buurman, substituting for the injured Richard Philippe at Fortec, was the surprise performer holding down fourth fastest time.

With nine minutes of the session remaining the majority of the drivers had elected to come in for a second set of new tyres. Pons driver Miguel Molina was caught out spectacularly on the cold rubber, locking up his fronts immediately after exiting the pitlane and skating through the Redgate gravel trap.

Having carefully worked his new of tyres up to their operating temperature, Parente set a pole time of 1:17.900 with just three minutes remaining. The position was secured two minutes later when Salvador Duran pirouetted on the exit of Coppice and stalled, bringing the session to a premature halt.

"After making my stop for a second set of tyres I was building up to speed gradually, so in that interval it was normal that I dropped down the order before I set pole," said Parente. "Everything has gone well up until now, but I have to concentrate on the race, that's what is going to count."

Parente's Tech 1 team boss Simone Abadie was equally delighted, the result going a long way to lightening his mood after France lost the opening match of the Rugby World Cup.

"It's much better than the rugby, no?" he said. "This is a very important result for our team, the first pole for Tech 1 in Renault 3.5s."

Barba was not disheartened by the red flag, and will be hoping to bring the car home after a recent run of mishaps.

"Every race I am on the first and second row and something happens," he said. "Now I'm not even thinking about the podium, I just want to finish."

Pos  Driver            Team                   Time
 1.  Alvaro Parente    Tech 1 Racing          1:17.845
 2.  Fairuz Fauzy      Cram Competition       1:18.068  + 0.223
 3.  Alvaro Barba      International Draco    1:17.962  + 0.117
 4.  Julien Jousse     Tech 1 Racing          1:18.368  + 0.523
 5.  B.Baguette        KTR                    1:18.318  + 0.473
 6.  Marco Bonanomi    RC Motorsport          1:18.653  + 0.808
 7.  Yelmer Buurman    Fortec Motorsport      1:18.412  + 0.567
 8.  M.Ammermüller     Carlin Motorsport      1:18.761  + 0.916
 9.  Miguel Molina     Pons Racing            1:18.541  + 0.696
10.  Alejandro Nunez   Red Devil Team Comtec  1:18.782  + 0.937
11.  Mikhail Aleshin   Carlin Motorsport      1:18.608  + 0.763
12.  F.Albuquerque     Epsilon Euskadi        1:18.898  + 1.053
13.  Guillaume Moreau  KTR                    1:18.618  + 0.773
14.  G.van der Garde   Victory Engineering    1:18.987  + 1.142
15.  Davide Valsecchi  Epsilon Euskadi        1:18.668  + 0.823
16.  Michael Herck     Red Devil Team Comtec  1:19.172  + 1.327
17.  Salvador Duran    Interwetten.com        1:19.068  + 1.223
18.  Charlie Kimball   Victory Engineering    1:19.179  + 1.334
19.  Milos Pavlovic    International Draco    1:19.097  + 1.252
20.  Clivio Piccione   RC Motorsport          1:19.239  + 1.394
21.  A.Ciompi          EuroInternational      1:19.396  + 1.551
22.  Xavier Maassen    Prema Powerteam        1:19.358  + 1.513
23.  Pippa Mann        Cram Competition       1:19.466  + 1.621
24.  James Walker      Fortec Motorsport      1:19.512  + 1.667
25.  Carlos Iaconelli  Pons Racing            1:19.512  + 1.667
26.  P.Di Sabatino     GD Racing              1:20.119  + 2.274
27.  Daniel Move       Interwetten.com        1:20.430  + 2.585
28.  Luiz Razia        GD Racing              1:20.784  + 2.939
29.  Julian Theobald   EuroInternational      1:20.729  + 2.884
30.  Benjamin Hanley   Prema Powerteam        1:21.087  + 3.242